Do you have this problem -- you walk out of the Target store at 4:30 in the afternoon after a day of shlepping and chaufeurring and. . . you forget what country you're in??
    Where the fuck am I??
     Portugal??
     Lichtenstein??
     Oh, thank God, there's the American flag. Whew, that's a load off my mind. Now I can drive eleven miles across the metroplex and pick up the kids at Soccer World.
     Actually, I have a theory about the promiscuous deployment of Old Glory all around the tilt-up utopia of Parking Lot Nation. A flag is a sort of supernatural totem, meant to protect the bearer against animadversion and harm. We're trying to distract ourselves from the spectacle of ugliness and banality that we've created, and protect our sensibilities against the suspicion that we have become a land of wicked, self-destructive slobs.
      Happy Independence Day.
    

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