They call at all hours, asking for her vote, my dead wife. She was a registered independent, and our home is in a swing state. When we moved here, she was not an independent, and the state was unyielding. But people change. States, too. In the meantime, elections.
“Every four years,” she used to say, “I’m the most beautiful girl at the party.”
They call me, too. Nowhere near as often, and when they ask for me, I simply hang up. My wife would talk to them. You would not have considered her chatty, but she always had time for a salesperson. She would tell the caller she was undecided and challenge them to persuade her to support their candidate. She’d hear them out — a steady flow of Hmmm and You don’t say. Is that what he supports? — before spurning them and backing the opposition.
