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Run for office.

I thought about running for office many years ago but a political consultant correctly pointed out that nobody would vote for me. Well, maybe somebody would but who wasn’t immediately evident. I didn’t have the credentials, party membership, hadn’t put my time in, didn’t have connections, had no rich friends. He kept piling on but by then I’d pushed away my enchilada lunch served on a paper plate at a local restaurant known for its backroom king-making and hurried off to my car.

I picked the kids up from school and then stood in the kitchen, steeling myself to answer the question from my husband, “Well, what did the hotshot consultant say?”

He said, “Who would vote for you? And when he did, I ran off like a scared Avon lady who’d just gotten a door slammed in her face.”

So, now, thirty years later, the topic came up again a few weeks ago. First, as a joke and then as kind of a serious joke.

I thought about it. I thought about knocking on doors to ask people to vote for me. I thought about making fundraising calls and wanting people to host fundraisers. I thought about actually winning and then having to go every day to the place to which I got elected. Dress up in a suit, answer calls from constituents, keep running for office. So much Chex Mix and lukewarm soda. And I thought about my age – 75 – which is significant in so many ways, including what big round number is next. And then I ditched the idea.

Still, if you ask me about a risk I’d like to take but never took (and now never will), running for office would be it.

So there.

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Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash