"A RUSH AND A PUSH AND THE LAND IS OURS"

Oh wasp-in-sombrero, holding court in the bar around the corner, as I walked by and you announced loudly to your co-celebrants, "Yeah, my fuckin' uncle thinks at at the conference in Wheaton or wherever. Whatever, I'm on the clock!" as you raised your shot of tequila and Dos Equis lager, then beckoned to me with your delicate words in celebration's spirit: "Hey, sweetheart. Smile it's fuckin' Cinco de Mayo!", it was that moment I knew you understood this holiday, a day commemorating initial victory over France in the Battle of Puebla, and I knew you were strengthened by the sheer might of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin who led Puebla in battle. And, as your ladyfriends lifted their Corona Light bottles and sang "woooo" and burst into an a capella version of Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca (Would they even know if told Ricky Martin is Puerto Rican and not Mexican and that there's a difference?) that they, too felt these things. But, it was as I waited to cross the street and overheard you, wasp-in-sombrero, say to your hard-working busyboy, "Hey man, it's your people's early fourth of july! We're celebrating for your freedom to come live here, bro! Tell your boss to go fuck himself so you can drink cervesas and shit with me and these girls." Right then, I knew that of course you knew the difference between, say, Cinco de Mayo and dieciséis de septiembre (the actual Mexican Independence Day occurring on, as the name might suggest, the sixteenth of September) but it was the next moment, when the hard-working busboy looked at you, wasp-in-sombrero, and said, wishing you'd just pass out already, "Man, my boss is a lady" that made me glad you, for only a moment, had my ear.