Madge Monday

Oops. I'm behind again.
We hosted a little Obama phone calling party on Saturday. I wasn't supposed to be little, but our friends seemed to have more, uh, important things to do at the time. But two wonderful ladies from the neighborhood showed up. They wanted to do something but weren't quite ready to go to a battleground state in person, so they came for the phone calls. They were really sweet.
Which is why it was doubly troubling that a person one of them called - we had chosen numbers in Indiana - said something to the effect that he would never vote for a n-word.
We didn't hear this. Her facial reaction, though, showed it. Her verbal reaction was great, though. We did hear, "Well, you're going to have one as your next president."
But then we got to explain the n-word to Madge, who dealt with it very well. By "dealing with it very well" I mean that I'm quite sure she didn't understand all the weight the word carries, but she could tell that it was momentous in the situation and she didn't press it or pose any arguments.
She has heard the word before, I'm sure. At the very least when I mumbled through it while reading Tom Sawyer to her, but also from blasting car stereos and neighborhood kids, though they tend to say "son."
Coco was just disappointed that the party wasn't a real party with, you know, chatting people and presents. Madge was excited because she got to be the data entry person.