Priceless

It takes a lot of effort to chalk for an event. In case you didn't know, chalking is when you write some political or informative message on the sidewalk. Believe me, one doesn't chalk for a message or campaign that you don't believe in because you're inevitably sore from the effort the next day.

Anyway, today is November 7th. Today, the state of Wisconsin decides whether or not to put discrimination into its state constitution. There are chalkings everywhere you look here at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. It's evident a lot of people care about this constitutional issue. Twenty "A Fair Wisconsin Votes No" chalkings stand beside each "A Moral Wisconsin Votes Yes." However, not everybody appreciates the hard work it takes to place political messages on a sidewalk.

Recently, various individuals had taken to nocturnal sabotagings of the "Vote No" chalkings. These dubious individuals crossed out the "No" and replaced it with their own more homophobic "Yes," intending to confuse voters on which voting box to fill on voting day. So, obviously, I was concerned when I saw someone urinating on the chalkings on Library Mall.

I stood for a moment in utter silence. All that hard work and years of first amendment protections were being flushed down the toilet, all pun intended. Being the conscious and polite citizen that I am, I did the only thing I could think of at the moment. I slowly raised my camera, charged the flash, and took a picture of the man holding his greatest embarrassment in his hands. The picture is priceless... very 'deer-in-headlights.' My friend takes my cue and grabs the camera out of my hands in order to chase the two individuals down an alleyway. He takes more pictures of them as they call out creative terms to describe his sexual orientation.

"We'll make a political statement if we want to, fa&&ot," they shout as they run away.

Did I mention the picture is priceless? Anyway, to further complicate things, a police car pulls up besides me. I inform the slightly-Sapphic police officer of the recent events. She says she'll look into it and pulls after the culprits.

I sigh and look down at all the hard work the bigots had erased. Yet, for a moment, I was confused. I could barely make out the words... "Moral"... "Yes." The culprits had urinated on their own chalking, most likely due to the confusion created from the earlier sabotaging. The only anti-gay message on library mall had washed away as the two culprits cat-called back down the alley with harassing comments.

Ah, it's these moments that give me hope for the world.