That Was Weird (and strangely informative)

So I was volunteering at my kid's school today as I do every couple of weeks and I had to go into the faculty/staff workroom to make a few die-cast-cut letters. I was posting the kids art on the bulletin board. I was executing my own art on the bulletin boards, actually. I should have photographed my work. Doy!

I was/am in a good mood today so I was friendly enough to engage in the small talk with this one young mom who volunteers every Thursday. I've seen her and chatted with her before. So we're familiar.

Something-something I mumbled after a while and the words, "...like our President..." came out of my mouth. Not only do I usually avoid small talk but I would never bring up a sensitive topic like religion or politics unless I had a pretty good feeling about a person. My feeling for this person was that religion and politics would not be something we would discuss. I regretted my choice of words. Copy machine? Paper cutter? That we discuss. Collating? Sure.

But I said, "...like our President..." Well this woman quickly became quite cold and rather formal and said, "Are you referring to our present President.... Or are you talking about our... NEW SUPER COOL PRESIDENT?!!"

She went on to describe how she woke her children up for them to "participate in history" and all. She lamented the homophobic/racist/bullshit anti-gay marriage nonsense. She nearly cried.

I was actually pretty shocked. She was gushing! I wasn't surprised that she was happy, but I had mis-read her demographic. Actually, what I misread was Barack's demographic. Because prior this very moment everyone I had ever discussed the 2008 election with was very different than this woman. Most people I have interacted with about politics have been college educated, urban, and obviously liberal. This woman--I previously overheard--never went to college, never lived in a city, and never appeared to me to be a liberal. Seemed pretty conventional. I was kind of blown away.

I guess 63.7 million voters has to be a pretty diverse bunch. So that was a weird interaction for me (and oddly illustrative).