Perhaps He Meant the One In Texas

I was helping one of the new kids at the school where I work put on his shoes when he tentatively looked up at me and asked if I was American.

"Yes," I replied. "I am."

"So that means you're from Paris."

"No," I laughed, "America is all the way over on the other side of the ocean."

"No." he said, now staring straight into my eyes. "America is in Paris."

"No, really," I said again, this time using sweeping arm gestures out towards the west to reiterate my point. "America isn't in France. It's a whole 'nother country, way over that a way, across the Atlantic ocean."

"NO," he said, expressing his true anger at my obvious neglect of world geography. "You're wrong. America IS in Paris."

And so it is as of 10:47am GMT + 1 hour on January 3, 2011.

Duly noted, young man. Duly noted.