Before an Inauguration

Applauding a politician, any politician - hard enough to understand, but standing in 20 degree weather to do so.

Even if I were celebrating the defeat of someone else who would have been to be my leader - why don't those two words horrify anyone, the presumption we would follow someone, let alone someone we "know" only through millions of dollars of professional spin? - why wouldn't the satisfaction be at home, quietly, not cheering the man who represents the price one paid to avoid a greater evil?

I know. I know. There are more of them then there are of us, those same people that - for whatever reason - admire First Ladies and Dead Blonde Princesses, Failed Speculators and Football Coaches. I expected to fail to understand masochists and the serial murderers of children, fail my Terence test when I try to stretch my imagination to feel as they do, because much that is human is alien to me.

To be honest, there's much else I just bracket and use as a given, also uncomprehended. But whatever my fellow Americans, my fellowman are, they are egoless. So what's with being such self-subrdinated, lackeys and claquers, unpaid?