In which Primo hopes for rain so he can get out of meeting with volunteers

It is the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and Primo is committed to spending Monday all day at campaign events. Then someone told him that there is a group of volunteers doing general campaigning who will be mentioning Primo's name during their rounds today - Saturday - and that Primo needs to meet with them.

Obviously, it's a good idea to somehow reward people who give their time to you. We are not in a position to pay people to campaign for us (what? you didn't know that people got paid for door to door campaigning? Yes! They do! Oftentimes, the sincere young person - the political equivalent of the indy singer-songwriter - who knocks on your door to tell you all about An Issue or A Candidate is being paid. I don't care - I am a capitalist and I believe people's time is worth something, but wouldn't you like to know if the person is being paid or is doing this out of sincere belief? I would.)

Where was I?

Oh. We are not rich people. We cannot pay people to campaign for us or to run the campaign. (although we made a big stupid mistake by paying Samantha, the most horrible campaign manager in the world for the previous campaign. My stomach hurts thinking of the money we wasted. Remember she tried to extort another candidate whose campaign she was managing?)

But Primo can spend time with people.

But it's not like Primo is a big name. So I have mixed feelings about this. It's important to keep people motivated. And it's gracious to appear in person to thank people who are working on your behalf.

But would I, if I were a campaign volunteer, even care if I met someone at Primo's level? I don't know. Maybe people who care enough about this stuff to spend the Saturday of a long weekend knocking on doors on behalf of someone else care about meeting the candidate.

Anyhow, it's not my free time. It's Primo's.

But he doesn't want to do it. He is hoping it rains so they can't do doors and he doesn't lose his Saturday morning.

I told him just not to do it anyhow.

"But that will hurt my reputation!" he said.

I laughed. "If reputations actually mattered in your world, Samantha would be at the bottom of the river."