Don’t worry, I won’t be talking about politics today, but I did have a minor difficulty in voting this morning.  I had completely forgotten that they had moved me to another polling place from the last election.  Absentmindedly and sans coffee in my system, I went to the church where I had last voted.  They brought up my voter record and informed me that my district now votes at another church.

She gave me the name of some Lutheran church, but for those of you living in the south, if you don’t know the address of the church, saying any church could mean one of many in the area.  Instead of competing gas stations or convenience stores on street corners, you have competing churches all vying for your money.  So by telling me to go to (inset name) Lutheran Church is akin to saying “I’ll meet you at the hockey game.  Look for the white guy in the stands.”  It’s like telling someone in Atlanta “It’s on Peachtree Street” and not specifying which one of the 32 Peachtree Streets we have here in Generalshermanville.

So I smiled at the lady and told her with a grin “You’ve gotta give me an address where this place is.  Churches are a dime a dozen here.”  I think she was kind of taken aback at my lack of knowledge of the God-Knows-How-Many churches are in this area alone but she did give me the address.

I do have one amusing side note in regards to the churches down here.  With this being the South, you’ll see a majority of Baptist churches and a few other denominations spread around for those of us who actually like to drink alcohol, but there are very few Catholic churches.  In fact, an ex-coworker of mine belongs to a Catholic church here in Decatur and there are so few of “them” down here that her church is considered a “mission” church by her diocese or whatever they call their group.  Basically a Catholic church in the south is considered as remote an area as the Australian outback or an outpost in Nairobi.