Constable: 'Anticipation … or just chasin' after some finer days'
The song running through our heads today should be the 1971 hit "Anticipation," by Carly Simon. Anticipation can be a wonderful sensation. You can feel the anticipation across our nation today.
And the apprehension. And the angst. And the dread. And the trepidation. And the fear. And the anger. And the sleep deprivation. And the desire to scream. And that shooting pain in your gut.
Welcome to Election Day 2020, finally, where everyone agrees that this is the most important vote in the history of our democracy, and nobody knows for sure how it will end.
We don't even know when it will end. Or, God forbid, if.
It's difficult to compare this anticipation to anything else in our lives.
I had a nearly overwhelming feeling of anticipation on my wedding day. I couldn't wait to say goodbye to my past and get started on the new future with my wife. But with that anticipation, I knew I'd be married by the end of the wedding service, and I also knew whose face was behind that veil.
I'm not making any predictions about whether our nation's presidential choice will be Joe Biden or Donald Trump. I made that mistake in 2016, when I assured my very worried mom that Hillary Clinton boasted more governmental experience than any other presidential candidate in memory.
"Mom, this is the United States of America," I told her more than once. "We're not going to elect some reality TV blowhard to be the leader of the free world."
If you are a voter who takes great satisfaction in me being wrong about our nation's appetite for Trump, feel free to enjoy this moment. You might be able to prolong that feeling another four years - or maybe you won't.
Polls aren't perfect. Stuff happens.
In 2016, I spent election night at a Clinton "victory" party in her old hometown of Park Ridge.
That debacle was a stark contrast to the joy I witnessed the week before, when I was sure the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series against an inferior Cleveland Indians squad. My faith didn't waver after the evidence suggested otherwise. I didn't worry when the Indians led three games to one, or had games six and seven on their home turf. But baseball has a finality this election will not.
We cheered the Cubs' 8-7 victory in the climactic game seven. But things might have been different if the umpires said we didn't have official results in yet from the 6th and 7th innings, and that might change the outcome. There was no team of lawyers for the Indians arguing the Cubs' Kris Bryant didn't make that series-ending throw to Anthony Rizzo.
Even when the other side in baseball can point to cheating from their opponents, the outcome doesn't change, as the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox can attest.
It would have been frustrating if umpires eventually had to turn to the baseball commissioner or maybe a panel of nine Hall of Famers to decide the winner of the Cubs and Indians. And they'd tell us by January.
If that happens with this presidential election, I don't know how all the nervous voters will survive.
The anticipatory tension drove members of our family to vote early for the first time ever, ruining that buzz I always get from feeling part of the democratic throng on Election Day. I'm not sure if my wife and I will have the stomachs to watch the results come in Tuesday night. And while Carly Simon used these words to end her "Anticipation," I don't think any of us will think of this time and conclude, "These are the good old days."