How the French Saved America

Last night I departed northern New Jersey, and the residence of my family, for an evening's ride into New York. Naturally I did not drive. My parents deposited me at the nearest Shortline bus terminal, amidst a throng of offspring equally deposited by their parents, and so on and so forth. We had all come home to celebrate the holiday; now we all purposed a singular return to our underfed, motherless lives. In years past this has made for high entertainment: two hour delays, buses filled to standing capacity, and the unflagging impulse to throttle one's peers lest their plaintive, cellular-whines endure a solitary moment longer. (Bear it in mind that, as regards New Yorkers, the cellular phone is an abuse far surpassing the all-male nude pyramid--not to be mistaken with the all-female nude pyramid, which not only is an altogether different sort of torture, it's jaw-droppingly naive.)