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222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
It has finally happened. I am tired of it all. If I have to look at more beautiful clothing or have another conversation about beautiful clothing or feign amusement at any more adoring anecdotes about what a caution one of the Ladies of Fashion is because, when being interviewed, she insisted upon a glass of straight vodka because, as she said, "I don't drink water -- fish fuck in it," I will start shooting. I want to go home and clean my bathroom, or anybody's bathroom, for that matter.
The naturalization application can be downloaded directly from the government's website. I have no problem with Part 7, Section C, in which I have to account for every trip I've taken out of the United States of more than twenty-four hours duration for the last ten years, including every weekend jaunt to Canada to see the family. I have kept every datebook I have ever owned. I pore over a decade's worth of pages and list all of my travels from most recent backward. I create a table with columns, listing exact dates of departure and return, plus my destination. It is a document of such surpassing beauty, it is virtually scented. Not since I threaded puffy orange yarn through the punched holes of my fourth-grade book reports have I so shamelessly tried to placate authority with meaningless externals.
I walk the concourse three times, looking fruitlessly for my carrier. I break down and ask a security guard, my voice a discreet mumble, where I might find the check-in counter for Hooters Air..
The ticket agent is handling a number of airlines. He only asks me where I'm going. When I respond Myrtle Beach, we both know why I am there. Our transaction is encoded, like I'm visiting a whorehouse. I remind myself repeatedly that there is no reason to be embarrassed, paraphrasing perhaps the most un-Hooters Girl of them all, Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can humiliate me without my consent. Although it is not for lack of trying. At the metal detectors the security guard, an elderly Trinidadian woman, takes one look at my boarding pass and lets out a high, fluting "Hoot, hoot!" before breaking into cackles of laughter.