I see it or hear it every so often.

"Press 1 for English?!"

"This is AMERICA!!!! Why do we have to Press 1 for English?"

So, I'm over at my mother's house the other day, and I'm calling the pharmacy to fill some prescriptions for her and I hear the recorded voice say, "Press 1 for English."

So I do.

And I have an epiphany, a very rare thing among 56-year-old men who work for daily newspapers.

And, after the manner of my testy, urban kind, I say to myself, "How hard is it to press 1 for English? What are you, stupid?"

That's it? That's what's ruining the country? You dumbasses can't figure out how to press "1"?

A few months ago, I take my wife out to dinner for the anniversary — we get some Italian food in a quaint little restaurant with a pool table in the middle of the dining room, and then we go to a bar for a couple drinks. She's drinking chardonnay, which both of us can pronounce and I'm drinking "Paddy" an Irish whiskey with a tremendous ease of pronunciation.

And a guy in a leather jacket spots me, I guy I haven't seen in a while, and he comes over to me and he's had a couple drinks and he hugs me. He's lived in America for maybe 30 years, but he was born in a country where men hug each other and he goes to kiss me on the cheek, because his people do that, too, but, like I said, he's had a couple drinks, so he misses and ends up kissing me on the neck, high up, near where my beard starts.

A guy on the next bar stool, Spanish guy I've known for years, he sees the guy kiss my neck and he says "What the hell!" and then he uses a very crude Spanish word for homosexual that the kisser and I both know because, even though he's not Spanish and I'm not Spanish, there's a lot of Spanish people living around here so both of us have learned to break chops in that language.

And everybody laughs because if you don't you're kinda weak, and none of us three live in a community where weakness is admired.

And on Afghanistan's plains, some kid who hasn't had a beer in a while takes some metal in the belly and gets tossed back in the air, with his arms flopping and blood leaking out of him.

And the medic gets to him and he's shocky and he's screaming some and crying a little and his eyes are flat as black glass and he's saying something and it's not in English because he's calling for his mother, like men do when they're hurt to death, and he's never spoken English to his mother.

And he lives. Maybe. And how do you think he feels, when he gets home, if he has to press 1 for English?

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com Marc Dion's books Between Wealth and Welfare and Mill River Smoke are available at Amazon.com