Just in Time For Halloween! A Villainous Threat or… Voting 2020?

What’s scarier than Halloween? Politics.

And Voting 2020 is getting into the Halloween spirit.

Now I don’t order stuff online often (because it will be stolen if left on our stoop for two seconds #milwaukeeproblems), but when I do… it’s recently and for this All Hallow’s Eve Vampire Dinner which I’ve been planning.

Yet, last week two small items I ordered were not delivered to me because my “address is not a real address.”

Or so the tracking status for each package informed me.

Therefore, one product was returned to the sender (I’m awaiting a refund) and the other product was sent back and forth between three or four local post offices because, again, my address was “not real”.

Like… all of a sudden. 🤨

I’m pretty sure I’m real most of the time and that the apartment where I spend most of my time is in physical existence as is the money we pay our landlord monthly.

Therefore, I contacted Bar Supplies customer service regarding the second package and the person who received my email was a ROCK STAR. 🤩

It isn’t often when humans surprise me in a positive way but, when they do… I write a very positive email thanking them.

In any case, this customer service rep with a delightful southern accent personally contacted at least four people in her efforts to track down my $3 purchase and later left me a voice mail saying that the Milwaukee post office system was apparently in disarray because the postmaster general’s controversial changes were now being implemented here.

https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/press-releases/baldwin-demands-answers-from-dejoy-about-ongoing-delays-in-mail-delivery-to-wisconsinites

To hear that the United States Postmaster General was directly responsible for my mail issues was quite a grandiose explanation and… I don’t know how exactly the political postal changes caused my address to longer exist but that was the excuse they gave.

However, the rock star Bar Supplies customer service representative ensured me that she had straightened the postal confusion out and I should receive my product that day.

I received my package the next day but I was still amazed.

She should run for office.

And my $3 toothpicks came with a sticker.

Yes.

Meanwhile, our downstairs neighbor recently went to the local Milwaukee municipal building to confirm her voting registration because she is apparently escorting a group of former refugees/new citizens to vote for the first time this year.

Huzzah!

Yet, I couldn’t help but think… of all the years to become citizens and vote for the first time, 2020 is the most adventurous year they could have chosen.

So our neighbor physically went to the municipal office to confirm her voting registration. She had voted in previous primaries, she said, but she wisely wanted to double-check.

I asked her why she physically went anywhere since she had access to the Internet, it’s a pandemic, she’s constantly sick and also because I’m a recluse and don’t understand why anyone would actively try to interact with other humans if they didn’t have to or there wasn’t some kind of intrinsic joy to gain.

In short, I was blown away and sent her the link to check her voting registration online.

But she wanted to really make a show of it for the new citizens.

And, what’s sad about that is, no matter how they vote, they shouldn’t be disappointed by the show they’re likely to get.

Case in point, the municipal office told my neighbor her address did not exist.

I told her that’s what Bar Supplies told me and asked if she wanted me to get my girl Brenda on the case because she was super effective.

And then I also encouraged our neighbor to check her and the new voters’ registration online. And… to vote early. Because this is not the year to make an exhibition of the voting process.

Rather, it’s a battle to make sure the voting process works.

Sadly, Milwaukee is known for voter suppression. After all, Shepard Fairey specifically chose this city to put his voter suppression awareness mural up.

And then… Milwaukee factions shut down his mural before it started and there was drama and then, long story short, the tenacious rebel alliance got clever and now the mural is up.

So it’s not a huge surprise that the addresses of my apartment building which is in a not great neighborhood and which has former refugee immigrants are being suppressed.

Or… “disappeared”.

I voted absentee two months ago, just because I assumed there would be drama.

So yesterday I received these two post cards in the mail.

It is odd to receive a handwritten postcard in the mail during a pandemic.

It’s especially odd to receive a handwritten postcard from a stranger.

But it’s really really odd to have two identical handwritten postcards sent by two strangers and to have the cards arrive on the same day.

Yet, what’s most disconcerting is the text of the two identical handwritten postcards sent to me by two strangers on the same day.

Are these postcards supposed to be threatening?

People throughout the country are receiving these weirdo postcards, illustrated by how my close friend’s husband received one and so did this Reddit user in Louisville.

Now the postcard people can try to follow up with me but I hope to not be living here in November, our address does not exist (though it’s nice to know weird postcards have no trouble finding my address) and… I don’t answer the phone much.

95 percent of the people who call my “No Call List” number are bots or spam.

So whoever the postcards are talking about can just join the spam club.

And, if these “organizations” do manage to follow up with me about my voting record, I’m a political science major… and I’d be happy to have a chat with them.

Yet, I feel the postcards are creepy.

But maybe I’m reading into it.

Literally.

After all, they aren’t the alleged Russian-sent Proud Boys postcards which explicitly threaten the recipient to not vote.

Of course, I voted forever ago so they can’t spook me from voting.

HOW DARE YOU EXERCISE YOUR DEMOCRATIC RIGHT AND CIVIC DUTY TO VOTE, YOU ANARCHIST!

My husband who also voted absentee weeks ago claims that he had received a text which had the same language as the postcards. However, he perceived it as being a confirmation that his vote was officially processed and was happy about it.

I suppose the postcards are more of a receipt of my vote which is nice.

Perspective.

Yet, I still feel the postcards are creepy, so I added them to the super homemade-looking creepy Halloweenized entrance stairway to our apartment.

I think they help raise the spook factor.

Thanks, creepy postcards. And, yes, those are construction paper stars and grave stones.

Our landlord painted all the walls with this insane anti-stick paint so nothing sticks very well to it. Thus, every day I’m picking up stars from the floor and pressing them back onto the wall, knowing full well they’re going to fall again tomorrow.

I try not to see this as a life metaphor.

In conclusion, if you’re living in an allegedly democratic society… be sure to vote.

And, in extra conclusion, don’t forget that there are:

After all,

🎃🦇🖤