I visited a local Wal Mart yesterday afternoon and asked the manager if I could set up my ironing board to petition for legalization of marijuana and she said go right ahead and do that. I set up my ironing board a bit off to the side, away from two paid petitioners camped near the doorways, but still in the flow of foot traffic.

Taking suggestions from Peter and Larry, I attached a simple handmade sign to the front of the ironing board that says "California Cannabis Initiative .org" with a couple pot leafs on it. Within moments I had my first signer and enjoyed a steady stream of supporters for the next three hours. I added about 80 signatures to my growing stack of filled in petition pages.

The paid petitioners didn't enjoy my presence at all. In fact they were quite angry with me and demanded I leave because they thought I was ruining their business. One of them spent a good half hour yelling at me and trying to get me to leave. When that failed he enlisted first a uniformed and then an "undercover" security guard to try and dislodge me. But I had gained permission from a Wal Mart manager inside the store and the uniformed security guy said he would be back after duty to sign, so I rebuffed the large "undercover" security person too.

I really wanted to distance myself from these characters so I moved a bit farther away. I noticed a red square painted on the concrete that was just the right size for me and my ironing board, and it somehow gave me sense of security to have the space to claim as mine for these few hours. It then occurred to me that perhaps that was the very reason for this red square! Larry has since confirmed that Wal-Mart does prefer that we use that designated area for our work.

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