I run in semi-political circles

Today was election day in St. Louis, and in the tony suburbs where friends live, and in my sleepy burb.

(A brief primer for non-St. Louisans: every suburb surrounding St. Louis is its own city, with its own mayor and police force. There are about 100 of these cities encircling St. Louis city proper. If you ask any resident of those 100 cities where they live they will say "St. Louis." This is usually a convenient lie. Few folks live in St. Louis: it's a wee five-mile square patch. In my work department of  seventy people, only two of them honestly live in Saint Louis.)

Those two friends get to vote for who might be Mayor of St. Louis. This is a big, big deal. I know one is political. I'm certain he's met the mayor or danced with a woman who danced with a man who danced with the mayor. 

On the other hand, when I had dinner last week with Friend #3, she had just come from meeting the candidate for mayor of her city. The population of her city is almost double that of the "Big" City, yet her mayor will have almost no news, scandal, or visits to MSNBC. 

I live in a burb in the other side of a river, and my burb has absolutely no cachet, and technically it isn't even one of the cities surrounding St. Louis, shut up, I still say I live in St. Louis, and so do all my neighbors. I did not get to vote for mayor, but I did vote for the school board. It was particularly sweet because not only have I met them, their friends outbid me for the sex basket I should have won at the fundraising trivia a few months back.

At this point, they seem to be winning.

Comments

[Kathy G]

I think your explanation of the metropolitan area is the clearest I've ever read.

[theQueen]

Kathy G - That is good to hear.I make up these explanations in my head and I'm never fully sure they are based in reality.