The Night John Kerry Lost

I was eighteen and newly impassioned about politics when I decided to volunteer for the Kerry campaign against George W. Bush. It was a bit of a disappointment. The shabby campaign headquarters in my small Southern town was staffed solely by two well-meaning stoners in their early thirties with strong political ideas but seemingly little ambition. Evenings after community-college classes, I would stop by the HQ and find the two in the basement sharing a joint while a DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 occupied the few stragglers in the office.

On the evening of the election, the campaign "party" included myself, a friend, the guys, and three eighty-year-old veterans huddled around a small screen. As the votes rolled in and our hopes of victory began to look grim, we all decided to share a bottle of Jagermeister. The drunker I got, the cuter Sam — the older, more burnt-out of the two directors — became.

It is amazing how hard liquor can all but erase a woman's resistance to male-pattern baldness, extreme body hair, and the overwhelming scent of patchouli. All I could see was his deep Mediterranean tan and surprisingly (after all the smoking) white, straight smile. Somehow (don't ask me how!) we ended up in the musty basement floor on what appeared to be a very old gymnastics mat. And surprisingly, the sex was good. 

I never saw him after that, but he called me once later that month — in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, actually — and we chatted awkwardly. As strange as it all was, I've never enjoyed another election quite as much. — Meredith