Loyd and I had just spent a couple of quality weeks together. He had his own money to spend, so it wasn't costing me a lot of money. We were having a good time hanging out and doing things together.
The only bad thing for Loyd not being someplace permanent was that he wasn't able to vote in the 2000 Presidential election. I thought maybe there was a chance Loyd might be able to vote if election materials had been sent to the previous resident. (He had passed away, which was how I was able to move into the apartment. I should note that he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, not in the apartment.) There was a chance his name hadn't been removed from the rolls, and if it hadn't, we were considering committing a little election fraud. However, I guess the San Diego County Registrar of Voters was on top of things and received proper notice that he had died. We never did receive those election materials.
On Election Day, I was able to go out and vote. On Election Night, I took Loyd to the biggest free party in town! It was Election Central at Golden Hall in Downtown San Diego. I always loved going there. All the important people are gathered in one place. TV and radio stations are there doing live broadcasts. There are all types of activists there from every level of the political spectrum. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and other fierce independents. People were marching around with signs and these elaborate puppets. Everybody does whatever they can to get on TV and push their agendas. In addition, there's free food all over the place. They say nobody goes hungry on Thanksgiving? Well, Election Night is a warm up to that!
But that was nothing compared to what happened in the Presidential election. We weren't prepared for not knowing who won right away. It just felt like Election Night never ended, except we didn't get any more free food. Every day was an exercise in frustration as we couldn't get any solid news about who was supposed to be our next President. And it got worse when it started becoming apparent that Bush was going to beat Gore. I never imagined that happening.
Loyd's money ran out and we were starting to get on each other's nerves. We knew that the time had come for him to go back to New Mexico. Even though he had taken out a want ad in the newspaper, he still wasn't able to sell the trailer. That meant he was going to have to take it with him. That was going to burn up more gas.
We had to wait until my next payday so I could give him some money to get home on. Even though I had a decent job at the time and was making a good amount of money, this still created a little bit of a hardship for me. But it was something I knew I could live through
He went to put gas in the car, but there was a problem. Since his car had been rear-ended a while back, he had never opened the trunk. He knew that if he opened the trunk, he wasn't going to get it close again. When he went to fill up with gas, he thought he was pulling the lever for the gas tank. He wasn't. He pulled the lever for the trunk and it popped open. Sure enough, he couldn't get it to close. This meant he was going to have to find a way to tie it down so it wouldn't come open while he was driving on the highway.
He did manage to do that and was about ready to leave. But it was raining very heavily that day. As much as I was ready for him to leave, I did not want him to drive in unsafe conditions. I had him stay one more night. The weather cleared up and he was able to leave the next day.
But the Presidential election took longer than that to clear up. In fact, I don't even think it ever cleared up.
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