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“I must have prayed for something like 25 or 30 years. Not one single prayer was ever answered.”

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Charlemagne was born April 2, 742. There’s no way I’m going to remember that past one hour from now.

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There is no bad guy/good guy dynamic in this fight. They’re almost all bad guys.

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I thought he was lying, but over the next few days the privilege and special treatment that surrounded him revealed it to be the truth. Plus, you know, he was addressed as “your highness” and traveled through public areas with a security squad.

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Stand patiently in the security line with your shoes already off because you’re not a shoe-bomber. In the ten seconds it takes an official to check your boarding pass and ID, joke about Barack Obama and threat level orange. Load your backpack in the screener and pause thoughtfully. Full scan or metal detector? You share society’s exasperation. Chuckle as security does a full body cavity search of the grandmother in front of you.