Why I need more than one type of business card

I had an experience yesterday that I want to write about, mostly because I am not sure why this should be so surprising and enjoyable to me during this hyper-polarized election cycle.

The kids started school this past week, and in their montessori program they start the pre-school children in with a slow, short-day session for the beginng of the school year. We parents stay near by, chatting amongst ourselves in the halls and on the playground (or wrangling up our even smaller children while the bigger ones are getting acclimated to their new class).

So I did an experiment. I wore a political t-shirt.

The front said 'The real GOP'
The back said 'Not only am I a republican, but I am a conservative, too. Therefore I am always RIGHT'

I wanted to see what responses I got with the shirt, given that I suspected that many teachers were liberal, and that many of the parents sending kids to montessori pre-school were as well. I expected to get disgusted looks, or even some verbal jibes or challenges.

But this is not California. This is northeastern Ohio, home to Cleveland, the #1 city for child poverty in the USA.

Instead of the expected complaints, I received comments like "nice shirt", "where'd you get that?", and "while I do not support your candidate, I approve of some of the things he supports". Wow!

At dinner that evening we took the kids to the Cheesecake Factory in Legacy Village. A nice man at a table behind me saw the shirt and came over to give me a "Bush Cheney '04" pin to wear with it. He said "If you're going to wear a shirt like that, you'll need one of these, too". We got into a discussion about how Bush really was not "conservative", but we both agreed we had no better choice at this point. It turns out he was up here from Akron, Ohio (I guess just to eat at the Cheesecake Factory) and was involved in party politics down there.

We visited the Apple Store after dinner, and a sales person saw the pin on my shirt, again prompting a civil discussion about how we can disagree on the issues but still be "Americans".

Finally, we shopped at the Joseph-Beth Booksellers. While watching the kids in the kids-area, I started a conversation with another conservative fellow who was watching his son. One thing lead to another, and we suggested getting together a "conservative play-group" for the kids... He didn't have a business card on him and I've not printed new ones since the move, but I jotted down his name and email in my Palm.

Now I have a need for a second set of business cards: ones that say "Jeff Hexter, Ginnie and Randi's Dad", instead of "Jeff Hexter, President, Always Keep Computing Inc."

(I think we'll try to set up the first meeting next week)
Link of the day: http://www.kerryoniraq.com