Twelve Names on a Coffee Receipt

Miss Ordinary tries to write something cozy and ends up doing homework instead.

Scarf weather update: the gray wool one with the frayed corner, wrapped twice. Fifty-one degrees, and the fog on the hill is sitting in the trees like it pays rent there.

I came down to the coffee shop this morning to free-write. That’s my routine when I don’t know what the article is yet. Mug on the left, notebook on the right, phone face-down so it can’t look at me. I give myself one page of whatever comes out, and usually somewhere near the bottom the real piece shows up and waves.

Today the page kept filling up with other people.

Two tables over is the man from the hardware counter, the one who helped me find the right washer for my kitchen faucet last spring and wouldn’t let me pay for it. He’s telling his friend about the storm drain at the end of his street that backs up every time it rains hard. He’s called the township about it three times. He wants it fixed before the leaves clog it again.

By the window there’s a retired teacher I know from the library book sale. She’s worried about the library’s hours getting cut. She’s worried about her prescription costs too, and she says so the way you’d mention the weather, like it’s a fact she’s made her peace with.

There’s a young couple near the pastry case with a baby in a carrier, doing math on a napkin. Daycare, I think. Maybe rent. They both have that look of people who’ve been doing math on napkins for a while.

And there’s a nurse I recognize, still in her scrubs, holding her cup with both hands like it’s the only warm thing she’s touched since midnight. She’s talking about staffing. About how many patients one person can watch at once.

I wrote all of that down because I couldn’t help it. These are my neighbors, and I know a little about what each of them hopes for. Roads that drain. A library with the lights on. A paycheck that covers the week. A hospital with enough hands. None of it is fancy. It’s the plain stuff a town runs on.

Then the conversations drifted, the way they do this time of year, and I started hearing names. Who they’re voting for. Said with real confidence, the way you’d name your favorite pie.

And I sat there with my pen stopped and wondered: does anybody know what those people actually voted for?

I flipped my phone over. I know. I’d promised myself. But I had half a cup left, and I told myself I’d look for one minute, and then it was eleven minutes. Somebody yelling into a camera in a parked car. A poll. An ad with dramatic music and a narrator who sounded like he was announcing a monster truck rally. A meme I didn’t understand. A headline that made my stomach drop and a second headline that said the first one was wrong. I put the phone back down feeling like I’d eaten a whole sleeve of crackers for lunch. Full, and somehow hungrier.

What bugged me, sitting there, was this. Votes get written down. When someone in Congress votes on a bill, there’s a record, with their name next to it, yes or no, and anybody can look it up. Our state legislature keeps records too. These aren’t secrets. They’re sitting on public websites like library books nobody’s checked out.

So I looked at the parking lot through the window instead of my phone. A bumper sticker on a hatchback, sun-faded to the color of weak tea. Another one on a truck, peeling at one corner. A bumper sticker tells you who somebody was rooting for on the day they stuck it on. It doesn’t tell you what the person on it did once they got the job.

I turned my receipt over. (I make lists on receipts. It’s a whole thing.) And I wrote down my ballot from memory, from the governor’s race down to my state house seat. Two names for each office, give or take. It came to about a dozen people.

A dozen. That’s a small enough number to fit on the back of a coffee receipt. And several of them have been in public office long enough to have a record you could read.

So I started reading.

I’ll be honest, it’s slow going. Bill titles are their own little language. I read one that sounded like a warm hug and then read the summary, and it was a much less huggable piece of business. Some votes were procedural and I had to look up what the procedure meant. I’m on my second refill and I’ve made it through four names.

But here’s the question I keep asking, and it’s the only one I’ve got. When this person voted, who did it help?

I picture the hardware man and his storm drain. The teacher and her prescriptions. The couple with the napkin. The nurse with both hands around her cup. Did the vote make their week a little easier? Or did it make things easier for somebody whose coffee comes with a board meeting attached?

That’s it. That’s my whole method. I’m writing it next to each name in tiny letters.

I don’t want to tell you who to pick. I couldn’t even pick a muffin this morning. I stood at the case long enough that the barista asked if I was okay. You know your life and what you need from the people who run things better than I do.

I guess I’m asking you to do what I’m doing. Take the names on your ballot and look up a few votes before you go in. It’s about the same time as one doom scroll, and you’ll come out of it feeling like you ate something real.

The fog’s lifting off the hill now. The nurse went home to sleep. The hardware man is still talking about his drain.

I’m going to finish my list.

Stay kind, stay caffeinated, and stay curious about the folks asking for your vote.

— Heather

Where Heather looked: