Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby Page 0,57

Could he see in my eyes that I couldn’t really tell the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini without cutting it open? Did he register my smooth, uncalloused hands and instinctively know I had never driven a tractor?! What kind of sorcery is this? HOW DID THIS RETIRED MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL KNOW MY SECRETS? Trying not to judge a Republican by his sensible dog-walking cardigan, I said, “I don’t speak English!” And then I left the recycling bin in the street and slouched away before he could say “Benghazi.” Although, in hindsight, I’m surprised there wasn’t an ICE raid at our crib later that afternoon.

I have never really cared about voting. Until this year, I lived in a blue state and was always scheduled to work a twelve-hour shift on Tuesdays. Plus, I’m not really sure if this is real or not, but I don’t want to be stuck for three days trying to think up ways to paint myself as an undesirable juror to overworked Cook County public defenders ever again, so I’d been like, “HARD PASS,” when optimistic young people approach me on the street about registering to vote. I shouldn’t admit this, but I am never going to read the qualifications of all the hopeful circuit court judges, and even if I did, how would I even know which one I should vote for? How does a statute work? What does adjudication mean? You’re kidding yourself if you think a person who couldn’t remember how the number of electors for each state is decided for the eighth-grade Constitution test is the same person who should be deciding who’s the best candidate to interpret the law. Can you turn in a ballot if it’s only one-third filled in? Seriously, does your vote actually count if you don’t take the time to fill in every single school board bubble?! Since I had to move to a little blue dot in a big red state to participate in this cross-cultural marital experiment, when the post office asked if I’d like to register to vote as I filled out my change of address form, I sighed and said, “Girl, I guess.”

I voted for Barack Obama one time, in 2008. Not that I wouldn’t have voted for him again, but I didn’t believe I could get my boss to buy the “new Black holiday” line two elections in a row. I had already gotten a pay raise out of him by citing reparations, but I am definitely not clever enough to pull off that kind of magic twice. I’ll never forget all the winks and nods and knowing looks exchanged with every black and brown face in line as one by one, we cast our votes for our boy Barry, and I will also never forget walking what felt like 137 miles through downtown Chicago and Grant Park to watch the election results roll in with thousands of my new best friends, and, once Barack won and delivered that super-inspiring speech as African America’s first president-elect, getting pushed and shoved and stampeded as I fought to get a spot on the northbound train after everyone realized it was two in the damn morning and we all had to be at work the next day.

The most exhilarating part of Obama’s Post-Racial America for me was when salty white people taped Lipton tea bags to all the fedoras and straw hats gathering dust in their closets and started saying “nigger” with abandon in the middle of the grocery store. Remember when liberal whites tried to trick us into thinking racism was over, when every night their uncles were on the news, their DON’T TREAD ON ME and GO BACK TO KENYA signs on proud display? I was preoccupied sitting at home waiting for the mailman to deliver the reparations check Obama was surely going to sign himself and send out with priority shipping, but I heard that some of you idealists had your hearts broken when the secretly racist lady next door who called the police on your dreadlocked cousin that one time didn’t start leaving her front door unlocked and inviting you over for a cold glass of milk and a warm slice of the American dream.

I can’t reliably find West Virginia on a map, but I knew that eight years of the Socialist in Chief, or whatever