My time as the Baghdad escort for my international colleagues isn’t quite over, but I have a break. I’d like to tell you more about the last two days — it’s been entertaining, to say the least — but I don’t want to step on their story, whatever it turns out to be. Let me just say that there’s no better way to spend a random Thursday than trying to sort our your droit turns from your gauche, and watching an urban European confront a drive-through ATM:
“You open your window to use the machine?”
“Yes, very convenient.”
“I won’t do this. Lazy country.”
And so we pulled into the drive-through lane, parked a few feet beyond, opened the door and walked three steps back to get cash. Because once you start banking from your car, a 42-inch waistline is just around the corner.
(On the other hand, I tried to buy Kate an Obama T-shirt at the Eastern Market last Saturday. The sizes started at L — on a slender 11-year-old, a large dress — and topped out at 5XL. So maybe it would do us all some good to walk back to the ATM.)
In other news at this hour, McCain is abandoning Michigan, Politico says. There’s a certain sense of all-over-but-the-shoutin’ in southeast Michigan, to be sure, but you can’t judge the rest of the state by our little tri-county area. At this point, however, the veep debate is shaping up to be topic A for the next 36 hours, with the Couric snippets — endlessly e-mailed and embedded and prefaced with I can’t stand it — acting as trailers. That’ll be the highlight of my night, anyway.
So consider this your Palin/Biden debate open thread, and I’ll be back on my reg’lar schedule tomorrow. Oh, and speaking of tomorrow: I have an appointment tomorrow, and neglected to write it down. There’s a lunch-adjacent thing on my calendar, but I know there’s something else, too, and for the life of me I can’t remember it. So just in case you’re reading this, whoever you are: Are we supposed to do something tomorrow? If so, please remind me so I can show up.
Meanwhile, Caribou Barbie v. Babblin’ Joe! It’s so on.
