Well, that’s over

I feel so proud of myself. I realised this morn­ing that I got through the whole day yes­ter­day with­out once say­ing “Hap­py Patri­ot Day” to any­one. The cer­tain knowl­edge that I could not have done so with any degree of sin­cer­i­ty prob­a­bly aid­ed my restraint; I don’t know that I want to go around my work­place drip­ping sar­casm about things like that. But it is a sil­ly busi­ness, veiled as it is in the shroud of real dead inno­cents, to con­coct an excuse to wave our flags and blow our polit­i­cal trum­pets and bang our polit­i­cal drum and pre­tend that we are sin­cere. So I can hard­ly be expect­ed to be sin­cere in my response to it, can I? So I kept silent, and the day passed with­out inci­dent again.

Per­haps next year I will send cards. But prob­a­bly not.