America?

Well, it finally happened. Amber kicked me out of the house. She told me she wanted Harvard and I to go, so that’s exactly what we did. We left. She got what she wanted. So here I am, in my parents house, writing a blog. Yesterday was our 4-year anniversary, and the night after, she kicks us out. That’s life, I guess.

Okay, so it’s not as bad as I’m making it sound. Amber is throwing a bachelorette party at our house tonight for Chalayn, and I guess “No boys allowed” is not limited to just humanoids. Harv got the boot too.

In Amber’s preparation for the party, she brought home some Canada Dry ginger ale and I noticed something peculiar on the can. There was an advertisement for the new movie Captain America right next to the Canada Dry logo. Captain AMERICA. CANADA Dry. Does Captain America drink Canada Dry? That doesn’t seem very Captain-America-like. Is Canada Dry trying to seduce Captain America to head north and fight evildoers in the land of maple syrup? Possibly.

As I was considering all of this, I had a realization (I have a lot of those). Canadians are just as much American as I am. Canada is in North America. Brazilians are Americans, for that matter. South America. Mexicans? Yep… still Americans. I had this same realization a while back about using the term “Asian” for an oriental person. Indonesians are Asians. Russians are Asians too. You get the point. So don’t call me an American ever again, or I will be offended in the same way that a man from China would be offended if you called him an Asian. From this point on, people from the United States should be referred to as… well, here be a few options I’ve come up with:

United Statesian

United Statesman (I’m sure the women’s rights activist will fight this one)

United Stater

United States of American

United Staten

Unitese

New English

Five-O-er (because there are 50 states)

I don’t know. What can you come up with?

Now, this leads me to a new point. If the aforementioned hypothetical Chinese man were to, in fact, get offended for being referred to as an Asian, does that make him racist? The Chinese man would probably argue that calling him an Asian was the racist act, but, as we all know, China is inarguably in Asia, therefore making the Chinese man by definition an Asian. I would argue that HE is the one being racist, since by saying he does not want to be referred to as Asian, he is inadvertently saying that he does not want to be put in the same category as the Indonesians or the Russians. He must be racist against non-Chinese people that live in Asia. So there.

From the point I just made, you can bring it back to us Americans. I guess we can no longer disassociate with Canadians, Mexicans, Chileans or Brazilians by simply saying, “I’m an AMERICAN.” Well, as I’ve clearly just pointed out, so are they. But it is really just semantics, and now I’m starting to sound like a politician so I will stop. To wrap this up, my initial uncertainty about mixing Captain America with Canada Dry was clearly unwarranted. Captain America can, and MUST, fight the evildoers all the way from the northern-most point of North America to the southern-most point of South America. However, he may want to consider a wardrobe change and either incorporate all the flags of the Americas, or go for a more country neutral theme.

Moving on…Four years. Amber and Me. Thick as thieves. Two peas in a pod. One can short of a six-pack… wait… I don’t think that one applies… or maybe it does… you decide. Anyway, she is awesome and I’m proud to be her husband. I’ve probably been gushy enough about her in previous blogs, and this blog is already probably too long, so I will sign out. Until next time, watch out for the newest superhero movie:

Saber Stater: The Fight for the Fifty.

Post Script: All this talk of Ginger Ale soda reminded me of a rather crazy night we had recently. Our friend, Autumn, and my brother, Andy, came over the other night. Andy was going through some old stuff from his college days (in ’96) and found a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. He brought it over for us all to sample. It tasted like… Juicy Fruit. The gum’s flavor did not fade over the last 16 years, but as soon as you put the gum in your mouth, the flavor fades in about 30 seconds. Explain that.

I also happened to have a miniature can of Coke that my grandparents brought back from one of their European trips. The expiration date stamped on the bottom was also 1996. It seemed fitting to crack that baby open and see how the Coke held up to the last 16 years as well. It also had not changed. It probably should make you nervous about drinking Coke and chewing Juicy Fruit from now on. By the way, if you can sing the Juicy Fruit theme song, then you are awesome and old. Andy, Autumn and I all busted out and sang the tune while Amber just stared at us.