I am, in general, allergic to politicians, so I've been surprised by my growing anxiety about this election. Last night I could hardly sleep, and today I was all of a flutter until 10 a.m., when the polls opened at the school.

Usually when I show up to vote, the library contains 0-2 potential voters and 6-8 yik-yakking elderly poll workers. As a mere formality, they look up my name on the list of registered voters. Then one of the ladies says, "Democrat," in a loud voice, and another lady has lately taken to chiming in with "Poet" to complete my requisite public humiliation. Then she hands me a paper ballot, and I go stand in my allotted booth and pencil-X my choices like a kindergarten illiterate. The last step, and possibly the most enjoyable, is to drop my ballot into a shiny square wooden ballot box that's clearly been in use forever. Probably it came over on the Mayflower, padlocked into a secret compartment in the hold. Probably those old poll ladies have to recite a complicated, fearsome oath before they're allowed to open that box; there might even be a secret handshake or special hats.

When I first started voting in Harmony, the town used to hold elections in the fire station, so we had the fun of snaking our killing-time-while-waiting-to-vote line among the fire engines. Those were the days when the voting booths themselves were a linked row of three rickety shelves on buckling legs, with the whole contraption sloppily painted in Depression-era puce. The row leaned precariously to the right; and whenever anyone pressed too hard during their pencil-Xing, the entire structure tottered dramatically. This was exciting for everyone, especially my babies, who also enjoyed the social-crawl aspects of illegal voting-booth invasion and looked forward to the final treat of the day: pasting two or three "I Voted Today" stickers into their hair.

But times have changed: now we vote in the school library and have sturdy prefab voting booths hung with patriotic curtains. And today: what a line!

Harmony has roughly 800 citizens, many of whom would never consider voting for anyone--though of course, as we all do, they enjoy complaining and inventing conspiracy theories. It seems, however, that an unprecedented number of non-voters decided this morning to be voters. Our line trailed into the parking lot. Would-be voters pressed their noses against the double-door windows. The town clerk had her hands full, what with all the aid she was needing to offer to the various stout, heavily mustached men in orange knit hats who were wrestling with their voter-registration cards.

The retired diner owner in front of me murmured to the Baptist minister's wife behind me, "Doesn't anyone in this town have a job?" Apparently none of us did this morning. "Bored? Aimless? Why not vote?" It could be a slogan. I must say, however, that people seemed pretty jittery. As if, like me, they were mysteriously affected with nerves.