Members of a polling station on a summer Sunday: “What a stick!”

“Albert, it’s your turn to be chair at a table in the elections of July 23″. She received the message from his colleague while putting one of her three children to sleep. “Fuck you, don’t play tricks on me!” he replied, incredulous. And, immediately afterwards, he received the link of the municipal plenary session in which the draw had been made. It wasn’t a joke. Indeed, Albert Masgraua 49-year-old resident of Torelló, is one of the 543,000 “lucky ones”, including holders and substitutes, who have been recruited to form the polling stations in this midsummer sunday with the mercury wreaking havoc.

Evil for many, consolation for fools, says the popular proverb. Because her aunt has also had to be vocal and her sister-in-law, substitute. But it doesn’t even make up for it. Because Albert was going to be, on this date, neither more nor less than in Menorca, on vacation. This week and next is his only summer break at the pharmacy where he works. But she thought she didn’t have sufficient elements to present allegations. He only had his plane ticket and the forecast was that his wife would go with the children -5, 9 and 12 years old- and the car by boat, but they had not yet bought all the tickets.

“The truth is that vacations annoy you,” he says with a resignation that he accompanies with a few snorts when he thinks that the polling place is the school where he studied, that it will be “an oven” because it gets the sun all day. There are municipalities that they have changed the location of the schools precisely for that reason. In the end, the family has chosen to make the trip equally, but shorter, after Sunday, a day in which Albert aspires to, at least, not have to regret the result that comes out of the polls. What has been saved are the procedures for vote by mail.

From cold to heat

But if it can touch the morality that touches you for the first time, it is worse when you are a repeat offender. TO Lidia Gonzalez, 31, his sister called him while he was on the beach one Sunday to give him the news that he had received a notification from the town hall at home and that it smelled like a polling station. “Don’t fuck with me, it can’t be!” She said with her skin still wet. He already presided over a table in the Catalan elections of February 14, 2021, which were held in full pandemic and subject to an unprecedented protocol. If she did not want broth, two cups, because she is once again the president of the table in her municipality, Sant Celoni.

“Had the certainty that this time he was not going to touch me, but I was wrong. At first I took it as a nuisance, but if there is no other choice, then it is done,” she says without much belligerence. At least it has not affected her on her vacation. Although she cannot avoid referring to the irony of her fate: “I already had to be in an election in which the climate was not the most favorable. I did a horrible cold because with the covid we had to have the doors of the pavilion open. I took a blanket and a thermos with coffee. And this time it turns out that the opposite could happen to me and I’m worried about the heat.” Of course, his number one priority, he assures, is that all the logistics work.

From “illusion” to annoyance

The consolation prize for carla isuna 28-year-old resident of Sant Esteve de Palautordera, is that she at least has a free entrance to PortAventura in exchange for spending all Sunday as the second member of the table. She found out about the news because they called her father after several unsuccessful attempts to her phone. “What a stick!” loose. But once made up to the idea and not having had to regret that she affected him in any way, she admits that she is now curious, and even “illusion”, for living the experience. She applied social education student, last Wednesday she attended the training meeting to have the main notions of the work entrusted to it.

Instead, Marc Pujolas, a 34-year-old lawyer, knows exactly what is going on. He lives in Barcelona, ​​but he is registered in Santa Maria de Palautordera and it is the third time he has been called up. He was already at a table in the 2017 Catalan elections, which were called with the application of article 155 and were held on Thursday. The draw returned to ‘smile’ for the last municipal elections, but presented allegations and was “saved”. And now, again, he has been summoned, but this time as a substitute member, so he hopes that the owner will come and that for him this Sunday will only be seen and not seen.

“The truth is that it upsets your plans a bit,” he confesses. In fact, has voted by mail because her idea is to eat out with a group of friends she hasn’t seen for a long time, so she had specially reserved the date on the calendar. His assistance is now on ‘stand by’. “Not a bit of illusion makes me, I’ve already lived it once. And it is not well paid at all spending a whole Sunday in July there, in addition to the fact that the people from the matches demand that you count again. They should make lists of volunteers,” he concludes.