One day I want to be that person accosting you

IGOT accosted by a rather sassy elderly gentleman yesterday. He wanted to know if I had voted.

I had not.

He was outraged. Fair play to him. But I don’t get a chance to interject and tell him I’d be doing so later on, as he was mid political TED talk by then, and it seemed rude to interrupt.

It was an excellent speech.

I gave it two thumbs-up. Literally. Which he was a bit nonplussed about, but never mind.

I liked the cut of his jib.

I could tell he had a fully working filter for his thoughts. He just chose not to use it.

Which is his prerogative, as an elder of our fair nation.

There were many wonderful things about this soliloquy, many of which I didn’t fully understand because he was clearly a lot smarter than me.

But what I loved the most, was that he wasn’t lecturing me on who to vote for, or why.

Nor was he shoving candidate leaflets down my throat.

Or enquiring after my political affiliations.

He was strictly concerned with my right to vote. And how important it was to exercise it.

Obviously the word exercise put me off momentarily. But then I realised there would be little running involved, and that cheered me up no end.

He’s right. Older people usually are, though, aren’t they? We are just too daft to listen.

It does matter that we have a say. That we take responsibility for being part of the political process.

My generation, and the ones after that, we have this terrible habit of governmental apathy.

We’ve never had to fight for anything.

The closest we’ve ever gotten to civil unrest was tweeting our outrage over Brexit.

We enjoy whinging over who won, far more than we like to take action and decide the actual outcome.

And it’s about time we pulled our finger out.

Because sassy elderly gentleman aren’t going to be able to do it for us in decades to come.

We have to be the responsible grown-ups now.

Not so we can justify our choices, on social media posts, or be smug towards those who didn’t bother voting.

But because this is one of the few times where we can make an actual difference. Have a real say in what happens next.

So much shouting of opinion goes on in society these days.

It’s the silence of voting that puts folk off.

There’s no validation to be got from it.

No back-slapping congratulations. Just a small, inner inkling that we’ve done our bit. That we might just have made the world a bit better. Not even for ourselves. But for those who need it most.

I hope that one day I get to be an elderly sassy lady who accosts frazzled, middle-aged mams on the school run, demanding to know why they aren’t rising up and exercising their civil rights.

Heck, if Rishi Sunak decides to finally call a general election, I’ll start practising my sass early…