These Clean, Dust-Free, Febrezed United States of America

I was nine years old the first time I visited the United States of America. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? To say the whole thing like that — the United States of America, these United States of America, the American States, United. Do you hear the bald eagle screech in there, somewhere? My father sat me down before we left and said to me, “Yash, there are rules there, do you understand?” I shifted my head a degree to the right; there was a dragonfly on the window pane. “You can’t litter there.” The world was my trash can. “No sticking gum under tables.” Where else do they put their gum? “In fact, no gum — you’ll lose your teeth.” Wait, what? “I’m serious — look at me. If you throw things away on the street, they’ll arrest you. Then you can sit in jail, and we’ll come back home. Do you want that?”

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