People tell me to stop answering their questions with, “America!” They tell me, “when I ask you a question, I do not think it a satisfactory response for you to appear taken aback, cough out a short gasp, and then cry, ‘America!’ as if you were providing an answer that already was, or at least should have been, abundantly clear to me.”
But, really, isn’t “America” a convenient – and true! – catchall for all manner of inquiries? Isn’t it the reason and excuse for everything we do? When you ask me why I parked my truck on your lawn, and I say, “America!” don’t demand further explanation, and definitely do not expect me to move that Chevy off your precious rock garden. Just take one of the cans of Miller Genuine Draft I’ve proferred from my paper grocery bag, and help me get these pit bull pups out of my truck, because you and me we’re gonna sell them, for pets or food. And why? AMERICA! – that’s why.
Why am I dancing so close with your wife during the national anthem at Fenway Park? America. Why did I ignore the sticker with your name written on it, and eat all the hash right out of the can? Why did I report your Earth Science tutor to the Department of Homeland Security? And why did I get my knuckles tattooed with “CHEVY” and “PRID”? I’ll give you three guesses, and they’d better be “America, America, AMERICA!!”
So stop questioning me, and start saluting. Stop showing your weakness and mistrust and start showing your prid! It’s my conundrum and my solution. When you see me getting thrown into the back of a police cruiser with my shirt off and Deluxe Sandwich-Press burns on my hands and forearms, don’t cluck your tongue at me and tell the police I’d been drinking again. When the officer asks you for a statement, I want you to gaze upon my visage, my features softened from the streaks of saliva I’ve deposited on the inside of the police vehicle’s rear seat window. Then look him square in his eyes and tell him, “You just go ahead and write down ‘America’.”
