My Missing Obama Sign

A Re-post From My DailyKos.com Diary.

Friday I came home to an empty yard. I had a sign for 3 of the Democrats that I was going to vote for this year.

Tod Deveyt
Jay Nixon
Obama/Biden

I thought that it was kinda strange, but I was not that surprised. So, I walked into my house, my wife was at her Mom's, and I see the only paper sign (Deveyt) ripped and in the trash. Couldn't find the others immediately. I looked out front again and saw the metal pegs by the front porch.

By this time I am quietly seething, nobody else home so no since in getting loud. I have some suspicions as to what happened but no evidence...yet.

You see, a week or so ago I had a fairly opinionated argument with my in-laws where I explained the issues as I understood them and not what they see on the ONLY news channel they watch, Faux. Their main opinion is that Liberals do what ever feels good, never mind that the Repubs are willingly/happily raping the American people. The statement was also made that if there was ANY increase to their business they would pass it along to their employees. It must be said that they only have 4-5 full time employees, 1 part time, and have a co-owner with them. So needless to say, they don't fall into the over 250k category by any stretch of the imagination.

I should also add that my Father-in-law was mad at my wife for 2 weeks shortly after we started dating because he had a DREAM that she had started dating a black guy.

Well, Thursday my Mother-in-law called late and was relating a story to my wife about a fight she "heard" about in my town. According to her, some guy went into a local restaurant/store and was running his mouth about Obama, apparently in favor of him, and ended up getting into a fight. I don't know who won or what actually caused it but, after hearing her over the phone I loudly opined that this is just more hate mongering and fear spreading. Her Mom and Dad told her that night that had half a mind to come up and rip my signs down. My wife went upstairs and I didn't hear the rest of the conversation.

I come home and see the signs missing. I wait till my wife calls and asked her if she knew anything about my signs, thinking they may have been vandalized. She said that she took them down and that I shouldn't have put them up. I asked why she took them down. Her response was that she didn't want our children being put at risk of someone attacking our house or them.

I know that this is not logical but the fact that there are a ton of McCain signs in our neighborhood and I can't put up an Obama sign for fear of my family is more than a little disconcerting. Is this not the very definition of Terrorism? Can I quote Bush? "If my signs come down then the Terrorists win!"

I asked her what of the Obama sign and she has it hidden. I am currently in the process of getting it back. I was told that I am not allowed to put them in the yard. So I said that I'm going to tape them to my car. The side windows of my Cherokee, not the paint like she thought. "That's stupid to ruin your paint over a sign."

I am also in the process of reversing the brainwashing that she has received from her parents. It was an interesting conversation Friday night. She said that she didn't know who to vote for since I only told her good stuff about Barack, better for us economically, I'm a Union Ironworker, and some of the bad stuff about McCain. When she asked why I don't tell her about the bad stuff from Obama, I reply that it's not pertinent to the election and that the hateful remarks have been debunked before.

I knew that it was going to be an uphill battle when she said some things that I heard from Hannity on the radio and knew was being broadcast on Faux. Oh yeah, she also said that I was "in the tank for Obama." Lovely statement from the wife so I knew her parents had a lot to do with this insane garbage she was spewing.(We don't have TV right now, cut off DTV due to lack of funds, so she has to rely on others for the news.)

We went to the wikipedia site for Ayers and several others and compared records of the Candidates backgrounds. I'm not sure how else to get her to see that her family is wrong on McCain. She won't take the time to research it and since her family only watches Faux and does not research anything and take it at face value, she doesn't realize that I do the research so that I'm NOT blindly voting for a candidate.