"I'm Not Going to Vote for a Muslim"

Every once in a while, I'll get a call on my cell phone from a number I don't recognize. Sometimes I get really optimistic and hope it'll be a call from the National Security Agency, or the CIA, or the Department of Defense or something like that, telling me they have a summer internship waiting for me where I can just do number theory all day and watch The Daily Show at night. But, almost uniformly, it is someone from the local campaign call center phone banking for Barack Obama. I think this has happened at least three times. I don't know why they're so disorganized; I always mark down that I am a volunteer already and a bunch of the people there would recognize my name.

The first time, I just said that I was voting for him and that I was campaigning for him, and said thank you and hung up. The second time it was a call from Tara, who's basically the director/organizer of the whole office, and I was POSITIVE that she knew me, so I was like, "Um, Tara, it's me. Jeff. I do classrooms for you. I talked to you on Sunday." [or something close to those lines] And she just said, "Oh, Jeff! Hey, how are you? How's it going?" So we talked for a second and I hung up. I think I got another call one time after that, and just said yes, I was working for him, thank you, and hung up.

I got another call, I believe, this Friday night, although it could have been this Thursday. My guess is Friday, because I was at Putnam training on Thursday.... although I could be wrong. In either case, I saw someone was calling and I realized the 814 area code, and figured it was from Obama. I'd been waiting to do this. So the woman introduced herself, she sounded probably 40 or so, and said that I'd written somewhere that I supported Obama and was asking if I was still going to support him with my vote. I said, "Um, no, I'm not going to vote for a Muslim." And then there was silence. She just had no idea what to say. After letting her sit in pain for a few seconds, she started to say something, but I had already started to talk to and I told her that I worked on the Obama campaign registering classrooms, and that I was kidding with her, and that yes, I was still going to vote for him in November. She started to laugh and said, "Oh, thank god! I'm a newbie at this and when you said that, I just - a Muslim?! I didn't know what to say!" And I responded, "Yeah, don't worry, I'm just f***ing with you." She said that she would normally ask if I wanted to volunteer, but that I already said I did, so we just said goodbye and hung up.

Peace out.