God bless America. In two Acts.

Dre and I are in the US, in my future home state (we checked
our site at Shady Acres last night by the way; still lookin’ good) for the
holidays, and being back reminds me how much I love this country.

Act 1: If you can buy a gun, you can buy a beer.

Dre and I went out to dinner and to see the Muppets (it was okay,
but nowhere the series and original movie) with
Bryan last night. When we got to restaurant
there was about an hour wait so we got drinks. The drinking age is the US is 21, as you know, and most places, at least
in Minnesota, are super strict about this law so we were all carded. I had forgotten my wallet and wasn’t served. But it was happy hour and beers were 2 for 1,
so I decided to check the car just in case my wallet was there. Lucky for me it was, but my licence was
not. That figured, but I did have my
PAL.

“What the hell is this?”

“A gun license. I can’t
find my driver’s license. I’m from
Alberta, in Canada; we get those for guns there.”

Laughing, the bar tender hands me back the PAL without further
inspection. “Good enough for me. What’ll you have.”

Between the 3 of us, 6 beers cost $15.

Act 2: “I’m gonna [expletive] choke you out.”

This morning I opened the paper, the Metro Section of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and read about an altercation at a youth hockey
practice. A youth was angered that he
wasn’t getting sufficient time for a particular drill and in frustration swung
his stick “like it was a baseball bat” striking a teammate in the legs. A coach reprimanded the youth who then
stormed off to the locker room. The
youth’s father was not at all pleased by this. He rushed the coach and “started screaming at the victim [the coach]to ‘Get
over here,’”, and then put the coach in a stranglehold. Before others rushed to his aid, the coach
said later we was blacking out. After
the father was pulled off and ejected from the rink he was heard shouting, ‘“I’m
gonna [expletive] kill you,” and “I’m gonna [expletive] choke you out.”’”.

I’m sure it gets any better than this, but if it does I’m
waiting excitedly.

After 2 days of This American Life podcasts in the car courtesy
of Mara’s iPod, I really want to contribute something to the show.

Happy holidays to Jews and non-Jews alike!!