THE woman in the lemon-coloured suit hoped it would be fine on polling day. "It should be sunny, I mean Met Eireann says it will, and early June is always good for weddings and First Communions ... but you can never be totally sure."
She bit her lip worrying about it and knowing the dangers of predicting any kind of climate in these parts.
I assumed she must be among the most faithful of some political party, someone up early getting out the vote, last-minute leafleting maybe, driving around speaking through a megaphone.
Possibly she wanted a fine day because her people, being poor, wouldn't have cars and mightn't come out if it were wet.
Or possibly her people might be wealthy middle-class folk who could only be relied on to turn out if it were a good day, to take in the garden centre and paper bank as well as the polling booth.
Maybe she was a Green supporter who wanted her people to have further ammunition about imminent global warming.
Very interesting why she was so worried about the weather something you'd love to ask. But you can't ask, really. Not straight out.
"Do you think it's all cut and dried then?" I asked, fox-like in my cunning. Now surely she'd give me a clue.
She twisted her well-manicured hands together and fidgeted with the lemon chiffon scarf tied to the side of her handbag.
"Oh, it may very well be," she said airily. This wasn't much help.
At worst, I had expected her to say it was too close to call or it would go to the wire or it was anyone's game with everything to play for. . . one of the meaningless cliches people use to strangers when they are playing it close to the chest and confusing the pundits. But no, she didn't seem particularly disturbed about the result.
"Why do you hope it's fine then?" I asked, because I couldn't bear it any more.
"Well, because it's easier to know what to wear," she replied, as if talking to a certified imbecile.
I looked at her, at her nicely made-up face under her well-coiffed hair. The woman wasn't telling me a word of a lie. It will be a social outing for her next Friday. She would prefer to go into Harold's Boys School, Dalkey or Wyvern School, Killiney - whichever it is for her - on a sunny day than on a wet day. It would then become an occasion to give the lemon suit an outing, or maybe its light tan fellow.
Because she did buy two summer suits when she was at it: she had told me this earlier and I had forgotten. Always wise, she had told me, to get two of everything in different colours. Her mother had taught her that years ago and her mother - though a woman of very many irritating little ways had in this case been totally right.
I sat sadly and listened to how two handbags, one cream, one navy, had seen her through the 1980s, and two long-handled umbrellas, two bright beach-towels ... the list went on.
Part of me yearned to ask whether she and her mother had selected two husbands, one white, one black, but it was only a very juvenile part of me.
I realised sadly that I was just as boring as she was. More boring, I think, because I had no handy hint on lifestyle to offer: all I could say was how different this election was to the one five weeks ago in England. Which is not a very gripping observation, when you come to think of it. As a blinding glimpse into the obvious it's hard to rival, but it wouldn't hold anyone spellbound. The woman with the two raincoats (one dark green, one wine coloured) was winning hands-down.
So I stopped telling her about the night 18 years of Conservative government ended in Britain and asked her did she in any way enjoy elections.
"Yes I do - but not only is it so hard to know what to wear, it's very hard to know what to say as well."
I suppose I looked at her in confusion. She wasn't a candidate, a candidate's spouse, a member of any political party, let alone a director of elections, a tally person or a returning officer and yet she thought it mattered what she wore and what she said.
We had missed each other by so many miles; already the chasm just yawned further between us.
Someone who cared so little about a sense of dress, of occasion and the niceties of conversation at a polling booth was a mystery to her.
Someone who didn't know who she was going to vote for and thought others would notice what she would wear when going to deliver this floating vote was an equal mystery to me.
Then she asked: "I mean, do you tell people who you voted for - people at the tables, neighhours, people standing beside you?"
And it was a good question. No, I don't think we do. Do we?
Not unless we see someone who is a fellow supporter and you could say that things were looking good or looking bad out of solidarity.
Or if you ran into someone who you knew to be a hack on the other side, then you might say you see their lot is out in force and that they probably have it all sewn up by now.
Or if you met someone with a T-shirt for the Jog Monster Raving Looney party, you might smile indulgently or else raise your eyes to heaven. But other people?
It's got nothing to do with the secret ballot act, but never having given it the slightest thought before, I now do think the lemon lady has a point. It is hard to know what to say to people when you have just put down on paper the people and policies you would like to determine the future of the country.
But we are not a nation of dumbfounded people - we will think of something, like the crowds being greater or less than last time, the weather being better or worse, the posters being higher on the lamp-posts and the likelihood of any of them ever being removed when it's all over.
BUT, in a sense, even though you might be voting in totally different ways, that you meet people at the polling booth is a bond. At least you are there. Undecided, or floating, or dithering, or cynical, you have turned up.
Perhaps, to make the no-shows feel guilty, they should show the marvellous news-footage of those long, long lines waiting to vote when the South African majority got its first chance to speak about the future of its land. The fact that we do turn up will ease the conversational wheels and temporarily unite the percentage that appears, in whatever weather and whatever garb and with whatever views, to vote on Friday.