Your Leftover Halloween Candy: Nobody wants your leftover Halloween candy.
Slurpees: 7-11 is not serving red, white, and blue Slurpees today, or any other day. Just don’t, okay?
Parades: The Veterans Day parade in your town consist of you, seated in a lawn chair along the main drag with a tiny American flag in your hand while strangers stare at you like you’re insane.
Wreaths: The president will gingerly place a wreath at a gravesite; you will gingerly place a wreath on a nail protruding from your door. The two gestures are hardly commensurate.
The Dentist: Oh, you won’t be spending Veterans Day being tortured at the dentist? Just me, I suppose.
Where Is My Selective Service Card Now?: Somewhere at Mom’s house. I’ll probably never see it again. My most vivid memory of it involves the high school guidance counselor's office, which is also where I got registered for a worker’s permit. It all seems so mundane to me, in retrospect. Are young people still expected to sulk through such hoops today?
Wishing Dad, Who Served Four Years in the Navy, a “Happy Veterans Day” and Once Again Registering His Searching Ambivalence About the Holiday: Seems somewhat telling, in some abstract way.
Dogs on Leashes: Everyone seems to be walking their dogs more often these days, perhaps as an excuse to soak in some of the brilliant autumnal foliage we in the mid-Atlantic region are so spoiled by. But how many of these fucking dogs are rocking American flag bandanas, hmm? None.