How To Vote Absentee

1. Drive to your nearest courthouse. Park.

2. Inquire as to where one can obtain an absentee ballot. Proceed to the first floor.

3. To aid in your convenience, "absentee ballot" is neither clearly marked, nor marked at all on any of the offices in the building.

4. After arriving at the first floor, the first clerk available looks perplexed and tells you that you're in the wrong place, but she thinks the place you need to be is on the third floor annex.

5. While walking past courtrooms, see the latest bumper crop of juvenile delinquents awaiting sentence. Ponder what caused them to be arrested.

6. Arrive at the third floor annex. Wait in line approximately five minutes. Be told that you don't actually vote here, either. The clerk calls for assistance, hoping to find someone who knows for sure.

7. Proceed to the fifth floor, growing increasingly frustrated.

8. Walk past a long line of working class couples working out child support arrangements. Notice a collection of hairstyles at minimum fifteen years out of date and a variety of women wearing too much foundation makeup.

9. Arrive finally at the proper location, after a wild goose chase lasting approximately half of an hour, by finding the one competent employee in the building.

10. Sign your name four times in four different places, then receive a ballot. Vote "yes", allowing Lee County to sell peanuts on Tuesdays after sundown, even though you don't live in Lee County. You see, the state you live in doesn't have home rule, meaning everyone in the state has to vote on each county's constitutional amendment.

11. While walking out the door, observe a minor sensation as a woman tries to walk into the courthouse with a knife in her purse. She quickly surrenders the knife.

12. Drive away, feeling secure in the fact you have performed your civic duty. Think to yourself that you're glad you don't have to do this again for a good long while.