Red, White, & Blue

For Halloween I had lacquered on a thick black toenail polish. Now it was the day after and the black was quickly becoming overly moody; too heavy (emo?) for the likes of me. So I picked up a bottle of remover and a bottle white polish. As I removed the black hue and began to apply the white, I felt the greatness of America. With one complete gesture, the cotton soaked in acetone thins the dense black, and the old nail polish is removed. Now with a clean slate, I can coat my pale, bare nails with the white polish. (A most fitting color?)

There! With that swipe of the brush, three layers of polish, the past has been obliterated. The nails gleam like new. You can feel like a new person: how promising and exciting at once.

A few days later, on my way home from work on Election Day, I stopped to pick up a bottle of red wine to have with dinner. I stood staring, my eyes rapidly shuffling (read faltering) over the mass of brands and varieties. I was baffled as to which wine to choose: Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz-Cabernet, Cabernet-Merlot, overwhelmed. Fatigued by the amount of choices, and wanting my choices edited, I finally settled on the variety of [yellow tail] with the blue label.

Not because I was particularly craving that variety (I can't even remember which I chose), but for the simple and sole reason that its label was blue. I chose it instantly and took it as a sign, foreshadowing of the outcome of the election and the direction of the nation: the impending inevitability of Obama.


This is a new age. I approved of the swipe of the polish’s small brush which could erase history, and the bottle with the blue label (along with the millions of voters) that represented some new force in America, an undoing of the Bush administration, doctrine.