A date with Uncle Sam

So it's finally happened after interminable years of filling in forms and forgetting my social security number. I am about to be granted admission to the exclusive club that is the US of A.

On September 2, I will be invited to a ceremony in which I will be asked to cite the pledge of allegiance. If I place the correct hand on my proud, beating breast, Uncle Sam will take me in his embrace and I will spend the rest of my life living the American dream and pulling popcorm out of a gigantic refrigerator

Well. Something like that anyhow.

Over the next few weeks I will be thinking carefully about my past and my future. I will be buying copious amounts of Coors Lite and Bud and forcing myself to no longer believe it tastes like parrot vomit.

I will hire a therapist who will tell me Twiglets are bad and Fritos are good. I will seek to erase all memories of New York when I joined a group of rowdy Brits who stood on chairs in a pub, cigarette lighters in the air and sang Hey Jude.

From now on I will throw away my Beatles and Stones albums, stop going on about Robbie and Radiohead and start listening to the Beach Boys. And I will kick random corgis in the street.

At this rate I may even have to attend my first game of baseball and American football. I might have to find a team to follow. The Washington Red Sox maybe.

But I'm damned if I'm going to use the s word to described football.