Volunteer Poachers In the Estuary

This being Monday, everyone's favorite day of the week, I decided to wear my little fuzzy cat ears to the office in an attempt to cheer people up. When I arrived at the office, however, I was greeted by a veritable tornado of activity: three of the five phones were occupied, people were leaving with armloads of yard signs, people were coming in with armloads of other yard signs, papers were fluttering around all over the place in various stages of finished-ness... Wow. I'm not sure I've ever seen things so busy, even on a typically busy day.
The reason for the commotion, I found out later, was that Anne Barth was due to arrive at 4:45, and that she planned to go out canvassing in one of the neighborhoods. Okay.. I wasn't altogether flustered by this piece of information, so as soon as I finished the first task thrust my way--it amuses me no end to walk and see my boss's face light up with what surely must be fiendish glee while he says,"You're here! I've got a job for you!"--I took up my usual spot behind the front desk. For the next few hours it was business as usual: new voters coming in to register, people coming to get yard signs, other people coming to volunteer, and so on. Among the arrivals was a German tourist who, to our great delight, asked for a yard sign and some Obama stickers to take back to Germany with him. He got them, then went out the door, across the street, and stationed himself in front of the opposition's headquarters while we peered out the window and kept our fingers crossed in the hope there would be no international incidents culminating in the assault of a foreign citizen who'd just waved an enormous blue flag under the bull's nose. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened.
All day people remarked on my fuzzy cat ears, and several of them even suggested that I wear them on a regular basis; no one said it was unprofessional, and I didn't notice anyone throwing disapproving looks my way. Okay... fine.. I'm probably viewed as the house eccentric anyway since I spend the time I'm not actually doing anything useful (i.e. registering voters, shuffling papers, or cutting turf) knitting a pair of socks; the ears, I suppose, just make it even worse. Oh, well.
At about 4:15, the office started transforming into something different: tables went up, food magically appeared (I now suspect Mr. Collinson of being a house elf), the folding chairs lined up, and more people started to appear, some of them in work clothes and business suits. Again, I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary was happening, so when a tall, pretty woman in a business suit and sneakers came in, grinned and pointed at my ears, I just assumed this was another person who'd come to help with the canvassing. Boy, was I wrong. O.O It was Anne Barth herself! I was embarrassed beyond belief. Rachael, your moment of fangirlishness rates high on the Richter Scale of Embarrassment, but at least you weren't wearing kitty ears while you shook hands with a Congressional candidate.... I'd even been planning to take them off before the appointed hour actually struck! Ms. Barth was really very nice about it. I'm pleased to know that our candidate has a sense of humor and is *gasp* a real person. ;)
Once all the volunteers were assembled, she gave a brief speech expressing both gratitude and optimism before ceding the floor to Mr. Collinson, who addressed the group on the matter of canvassing. This culminated in Mr. Collinson herding all of us back out the door for a group picture. I'm appalled that somewhere there will be a picture of a Ms. Barth surrounded by a group of grinning volunteers, one of whom is wearing cat ears. Off they went, the intrepid pairs of volunteers, armed with clipboards, walk lists, and stacks of registration forms to seek any who might have slipped through the cracks.
Otherwise, I was further amused (and surprised and perhaps a little incensed) that someone actually tried to poach me for another office. O.O Me? All I do is cut turf and register voters! And knit... and occasionally spout twaddle that makes no sense to anyone but me. I'm fairly loyal to the people I work with. I like them; they've become part of my routine. And, for their part, they tolerate my quirks--and my twaddle. I think I'll stick with them, if only out of a warped sense of loyalty and honor. :p