BOYCOTT FRANCE

Last week, Andrew and I were driving home from the pool one evening and stopped behind a pickup truck at a red light. On the truck’s bumper was a sticker advising us to BOYCOTT FRANCE. The pickup was pretty beat-up, and the guy driving it was wearing a baseball cap, and as we sat at the light Andrew and I wondered what sort of involvement this person might have had with France that would make such a boycott effective. Did he purchase a lot of imported cheese or wine? Did he regularly fly to France for lavish vacations, spending economy-boosting tourist dollars? Did he have some sort of large investment portfolio in French companies? We couldn’t imagine a realistic scenario where this person’s boycott would have any effect on France whatsoever. And as he peeled away when the light turned green, it was clear that France would probably not miss him.