My Mom is a Republican. She is not voting for McCain. She is not voting for Obama. She's not voting for the first time in decades. She's disgusted with McCain because of Palin. She thinks that McCain is too old. She is disgusted with Obama because she thinks he's vain and the media has a big ol' media crush on him. This pretty much sums up my Mother's perspective of this election cycle. Now all that being said, that doesn't mean that she's above playing politics if she's bored enough and I'm not quick enough in bringing back her bread pudding. Let me explain:

Last Mom Day we went to Old Country Buffet for lunch. We both hate Old Country Buffet, but the Old Country Buffet that's a couple of miles from our homes just closed so we wanted to assure ourselves that if the urge came that we could find another Old Country Buffet in which not to dine. Eighteen miles later, we found a new Old Country Buffet.

This OCB experience started off like it always does. We park, both shake our heads and ask "What are we doing here? We should go somewhere else." Then we proceed to walk in. Mom cruises by the salads, proclaims them all disgusting, then directs me to fetch her some coleslaw and cornbread since she's reasonably sure neither will include bits of imitation crab meat. My Mom has a fear of biting into a piece of imitation crab meat. She then pushes her walker by the entrees, such as they are. Every time she pokes the chicken and loudly speculates that it's really pigeon. Then she'll tell me to get her the meatloaf and some more cornbread. She does like the mac n' cheese, though she'll note each time that it will kill her. So, this time at the new Old Country Buffet was unfolding exactly like it use to at the old Old Country Buffet - then everything started to slide off the rails.

I should have known that things were going Twilight Zone when I returned to the table with Mom's selection and she signaled me to bend down so she could whisper something to me. I'm not sure what this bending down and hand to my ear thing is about since Mom will talk louder doing this than she does in normal conversation, but who am I to argue. She told me to look three tables to my left, that there was a man in a skirt sitting there. I thought she must mean that it was a guy in a utilikilt. Stumbling into men wearing utilikilts is part of the price one must pay for living in the Pacific Northwest. I glanced over. No, it wasn't a utilikilt. There was a man in his early sixties, white beard, zip hoodie, and wearing a skirt decorated with huge sunflowers and a RUFFLE. It was really awe inspiring. Mom speculated that he was a part time cross dresser. I was pretty convinced he had part time dementia.

Within a few minutes of sitting down, an older lady sat at the table next to us. Apparently at this OCB there are a flock of seniors that come in daily. They all seem to know each other. She soon signaled to an intimidating ex-marine looking guy to come and join her. He plopped down with his piled plate at the little two top and after a bit of chit chat, the pair turned the conversation to the debates.

I swear it was like listening to a SNL skit. Here are a few of the highlights:

• "I don't know why anyone would vote for Obama. They just must be naive. He hangs out with terrorists and gangsters."
• "Obama isn't even American. I don't know how he worked around that law."
• "Did you hear on Sean Hannity....:(I can't bring myself to finish that one)
• "McCain didn't mention that terrorist man at the debate because he's too much of a gentleman."
• "He says that they only know each other because their kids went to the same school. HA, their kids aren't the same age." (?)
• "He smokes, you know. That means he probably smokes a lot of other things. I don't know why they give him a pass on that when they kept telling us that Bush was an alcoholic and used heroin." (heroin?)
• "They think Sarah is an airhead. She's a sharpie, I tell you!"

While all of this was going on, my Mom was rolling her eyes, and sighing heavily. She eventually blurted out "It doesn't matter who gets voted in, they're probably all crooks." I was so proud. I thought that my Mom finally got that it didn't matter what side you were on, it's unpleasant to listen to an extreme political floor show when you didn't buy a ticket.

As the conversation continued on, Mom's eyes were spinning to the point it looked like she needed an exorcism. I asked her if she was okay. She said that she was getting angry because people should respect other people's sensibilities in a public space. I told her that everyone that knew her back in Dallas would be surprised to see her speaking out against people discussing Republicans favorably. That stopped her dumb. Her eyebrows went up and she squeaked "Republicans?" Yes, somehow my mother was convinced, since we were in Washington State, that any political discussion is always going to be pro-Democrat. I pointed out to her that very few Democrats quote Sean Hannity to prove a point. Then I saw and evil gleam light up in her eyes. She told me to go get her bread pudding so we could get out of here. Frankly, I really didn't want to leave the table while she had that look, but I didn’t really have a good excuse not to.

Well, while I was away at the dessert trough, my sainted Mother THREW ME UNDER THE BUS. She engaged the couple in conversation and confessed that she was appalled her daughter was voting for Obama! The couple were all geared up to talk me out of my wicked, wicked vote.

This left me in an awkward position. They were older, both in their mid to late sixties. I'm not comfortable arguing with older people. I was also aware there was nothing that I could say to them that would ever, EVER, change their minds. And I'm not ravingly in love with Obama. I'm voting for him because I think he's the best man in the race, not that he's the best man that ever walked the face of the Earth, so it's not like I'm going to launch into some rhapsodies bliss over him. I pretty much told the couple that I don't vote on personality issues, I vote on policy issues. I brought up a bunch of campaign issues. I touched on Obama's health care proposal verses McCain's. Told them I didn't understand why seniors would think that deregulating the health care industry would be in their best interest. I told them that I liked Obama's stance on taxes. I also liked everything Obama has ever said about education, especially students being able to earn college education dollars by doing community service. By this time they were looking at me like I had sprouted horns and glancing sympathetically at my long suffering mother. After a while I turned back to Mom and gave her "that look" and told her she better eat up that pudding we needed to go. She did what she always does at Old Country Buffet. She pushed away the bread pudding and declared that they should be sued for using both the word bread and pudding to describe this slop.

We said goodbye. Our new friends said that they'd pray for me. I thanked them, turned and gave my Mom "the look" again. When we hit the parking lot, I turned to Mom and asked her why she did that. She started giggling and said that she wanted to see what I'd do. She thought the entertainment of the floor show would make the bread pudding taste better. I told her that it had made me really uncomfortable. She shrugged and started giggling again.

I got her and the walker in the car. As I was clicking in her seat belt, she said what we always say when we leave Old Country Buffet, "Let's never come back here. It's terrible." I agreed. And I know that we'll do what we always do, we'll be back in about a month. Turn about is fair play though. Next time I'm going to bring Daniel with us, and make him wear a big sunflower ruffle skirt.