A Dated Post 9/11 Tale

Fahrenheit 9/11 enraged me like no movie I've seen before.
Exactly how it enraged me is not something I'm going to share with you. Whether I'm left or right-handed doesn't matter today.
What does matter is one day after seeing the most talked about movie since "Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson Take Manhattan," I was stirred to go on a fact-finding mission of my own to Washington, D.C.
The political junkie deep within my soul, which for too long had been buried under my affection for old-school rap and corn dogs, was awake again.
When was the last time a documentary about politics and war by a pudgy, hat-wearing leftist was the top grossing movie of the week? When a documentary of any sort can draw more Americans to theaters than a Wayans brothers comedy about black men dressing up like white women and a movie about dodgeball called "Dodgeball," it's obvious change is in the air.
We were on the verge of something big here in America and I needed to be in the center of it all. Plus, I had always wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial.
With an extra day off from work thanks to our founding fathers and this paper's publisher, the wife and I packed up our cameras and a bag of puffed cheese curls for a three-day weekend in D.C.
Like any good fact-finding mission, we first had to start at a Long John Silver's. I had the chicken. The wife had the Oxymoron Special, also known as the Jumbo Shrimp Combo.
Co-habitating side-by-side with this Long John Silver's near Gaffney was an A&W root beer restaurant. How these two seemingly different restaurants were able to work out their differences to form one unified eatery with an interstate view is an example for all of us and a sign to me that our country is still on the right track.
Not only was there plenty of malt vinegar on every table, but they had frosty mugs, people, and root beer on tap! These are the types of things that make our country great and I have to wonder why Michael Moore left out this out of his little film. Propaganda, I think.
Of course the trip didn't stop at Long John Silver's. We marched on to D.C. where our friends Monty and Robyn -- a pair of real-life Washington insiders -- had agreed to provide us with free lodging in their Arlington safehouse.
Monty is a project manager, or PM as they say in the business, for the all-powerful National Potato Foundation. I'm not exactly sure what he does, but I believe it has something to do with ensuring all potatoes -- from the biggest of the big Idahos to the smallest of the small red creamers -- have equal protection under the Bill of Rights regardless of the color of their skin.
Robyn is a Big-Time Washington Lawyer in the most Dick Cheney-ist way of speaking. She's really smart and fun, and is practically royalty in my book as the daughter of a man who threw two no-hitters with the Cubs. Robyn is so sweet and nice you almost forget she's a lawyer, at least until it's 4 a.m. and one of your friends needs some legal advice in the middle of your bachelor party.
Over the next three days, Monty and Robyn would serve as our guides to the seedy underbelly of the nation's capital.
Under the searing heat and mucky humidity, we saw all of the big monuments to all of the big wars and had a few fruit smoothies when things got too hot.
I walked the same streets as Woodward and Bernstein. I saw JFK's eternal flame. A man bought a Pepsi in front of me at a street corner snack stand, then turned around and asked me if I would buy him a hot dog. I said no.
We saw all the monuments to the former presidents which were etched with the eloquent things they said.
I wondered if one day they'll make a monument to our current president, and if they do, how are they going to find a quote worthy of being carved into marble.
The Fourth of July was our last day in D.C. Clouds moved in and it literally rained on the parade. Thousands of people had lined to streets and nearly everyone had a flag or some other patriotic paraphernalia.
As the rain continued to pour down on the melancholy masses, it was sad for me to see so many drenched flags and people pouting. I thought, what has happened to our American spirit? Where's are can-do attitude?
But then I saw it, right there by the subway stop. A line of dry men and women selling $2 umbrellas for $10 each.
I love my country.