A few summers ago, we went to a friend's house for a 4th of July party. To help create a patriotic mood, she draped the front of her house in flag bunting, like this:

I told Julie and Chrissy that flag bunting depresses me.  They asked me why and I said, "I don't know.  It just makes me feel funny and I hate it." The following Sunday, when I returned from a weekend trip, my house was covered in flag bunting. That was a good one, you guys, but the exposure therapy was ineffective. However, it did make me wonder why bunting leaves me sweating bullets.

Well, it turns out we can blame Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. -- the place where Lincoln got shot.  The realization dropped on me like John Wilkes Booth when I was there last summer with my sister, Maureen, and my eight-year-old niece, Ellie. I grew up in Washington, and I went to Ford's Theatre on field trips so many times that I could have been a docent.  Reliving Lincoln's death scared me when I was a little girl, and every time I took the tour, I prayed that things would work out differently for President Lincoln. What I'd forgotten after all this time is that his box seats were crawling with bunting.

After exiting through the gift shop that day, the three of us were feeling a little blue. Then Ellie looked up the street and saw Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. We had such a good time in there that I was sorry I'd always told my kids you had to be 18 to be admitted.  All of the wax presidents are patient and accommodating about posing with you for photos.  Best of all was that I got to live out my childhood dream of stopping Abraham Lincoln's murder.