No button for you!
All I wanted was an Obama for President button to put on my brand new backpack.
I was willing to plunk down my $3 to get it, but the $2.95 shipping and handling seemed excessive, given the price of the underlying item and the fact that Obama campaign HQ is in Chicago. How hard could it be to find where the office is, march up to the front desk, plunk down three crisp Washingtons, get my button and affix it to my backpack then and there?
It was harder than you might think. First, I needed to find the office. The official Obama website lists only a P.O. Box. How are idealistic young people supposed to walk in the front door and get handed work to do, Travis Bickle-style? I suppose you have to prove your worth online, stuffing emails or something, in order to get invited to Barack's lair. Only by tracking it down in a news search did I find that it was downtown, a 15-minute walk from school.
I set off for B.O.H.Q. on one sunny afternoon, assuming the best. I was going to bring a pound of coffee for the campaign staff, but I was in a bit of a time crunch, so my altruism was thwarted. At the building, I waited for 10 minutes at the front desk while the security guard chatted with someone about something presumably unrelated to me getting upstairs for my button. I have literally never had to wait even one minute for building lobby security outside of the World Trade Center and the United Nations. When I finally got to see the security guard, I told her where I was going, she looked at the list of approved visitors and found that I wasn't on it. "Can't go up." I said all I needed to do was get something from the front desk. "Can't go up."
So I skulked back to school, debating whether I should support Richardson instead. If he had a chance of winning, I would have done so already, but I need to stick to the one guy who can beat the awful Hillary Clinton. Even if he does have a bunker mentality.
I ordered the button online, sucking up the extra $2.95 to show my support. But I will never view the campaign the same way again.
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