I work from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the polls for most of Tuesday night. And I didn’t. I usually spend my time stocking shelves, folding shirts, listening to people laughing and questioning their joy.
A lot of the time in retail, you have to focus on counting minutes purposefully. It’s all about wasting the right amount of time the right way, and parceling out a long shift into manageable sections.
For the next 15 minutes, I’ll organize this row of pumpkin spice candles. After that, I’ll spend three minutes putting away this package of condoms someone left in the Christmas section, and then five crushing cardboard boxes.
You have to focus on the task, and hope it eats up enough time on the clock so the next time you check it, you are that much closer to going home.
I was really nauseous. I didn’t want to look at the numbers. One of my coworkers showed me the New York Times map at one point during the night. I asked her if it was bad, and she said it depends on who you like. I got worried she might be a supporter of President Donald Trump.
The polling numbers said Trump was at 13 Electoral College votes, with former Vice President Joe Biden at three. Then I went back to organizing deodorant and tomato soup in the inventory. I tried not to think about it. I tried to listen to the music my store plays: nondescript, anonymous pop songs that cause brain atrophy. It was nice.
Then it got to 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and then 10 p.m. My coworkers kept telling me to be safe on my walk home. I could tell one was crying. She said she was proud of us.
Then I went home. I thought about my next-door neighbor, who is a Trump supporter. He said it very proudly and unashamedly. It made me nauseous.
If the thing we are too scared to name happens, I don’t think these next four years will also be a matter of counting down the minutes. I don’t feel this misery has a foreseeable end. My shift is over at 10:30 p.m. Who knows when the presidency will end?
No one should have — nor can have — the luxury of reorganizing a random corporation’s inventory of tomato soup to distract themselves from this country and time.
There will be no countdown until 2024 like there was for 2020, because we should know by now the vicious, evil heart of this country cannot be weeded out by the presidency. Moreover, we don’t know if there will even be an election in 2024.
How will we pass the time if what we don’t want to happen happens? How will we pass the time if what we want to happen does?
Either way, we must organize mass social movements, participate actively in mutual aid and community-led organizations, protest daily, redistribute our resources and work to abolish organizations such as the police — including the Boston University Police Department — and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Our tasks must be meaningful no matter the outcome. But unfortunately, we can’t distract ourselves from the moment. We have to live through these times and ensure other people do, too.
