Slutbucks

Upon re-entry yesterday, I got a soy latte at the merchandise mart starbucks while waiting for the fed ex to open so I could drop my notorious russian visa package in the mail. Hopefully, my passport gets back to me as promised or I'll be spending a lot more time here. Anyhow. I at first did a double take when they handed me a beautiful brown cup with a logo somewhat resembling what I remembered, sans the green. Then I received a five dollar bill with a large, monolopy-looking purple 5 on the back? Where am I, I thought. Having just watched a bunch of LOST episodes and having seen three serious Lost character doppelgangers on the enrichment voyage (Rousseau, Dr. Christian Shepard, and scary Ethan) ... the thought crossed my mind that I have perhaps entered some parallel, weird version of the US. I picked up a newspaper a la Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. 2008. Check. Gas costs well over $4.00 and the race for the democratic nominee is still in the works. But my suspicions were soon evaded when I read that a Christian group in San Diego is boycotting Starbucks for celebratory usage of the mythological, original logo. Now that's the America I know and remember. Thank God.