A 72-year-old retired schoolteacher from Monroe, Louisiana who likes Old Fashioneds more than Bloody Marys (and in fact has traded a half-drunk one of the latter for a fresh one of the former) warned the woman seated next to her—a stranger from Belfast, Northern Ireland—that she was a talker. And now she’s telling this deeply patient woman about everything.
Finally, they get to the last U.S. election. I cringe, and tilt my head their way.
On November 4—the day before Election Day—she attended a special prayer service at the church where she worships, and also works.
Overwrought by the spiritual/political deliberations, she began to cry, and ducked into a side room, to find a Kleenex. In there, she tripped and fell, knocking herself unconscious. (A security video later showed she was out for about five minutes.)
She had broken her nose, and spent the night at the hospital. She was laid up on Election Day.
“So I couldn’t vote for either of ’em!” she told the woman. “Maybe that worked out well!”
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