Jack of Harts

Now the United States of America had come a long way to negotiate with the Mexicans over the border, and some of the exchanges had been unkind. Some unkind words had been thrown back and forth. Some bullets. But the United States is a generous neighbor, so we chose to forget those unkind words and gave Mexico a bunch of gold in exchange for Mexican territory west of Texas all the way to the West Coast. California, here we come. As is sometimes the nature of agreements, there was some disagreement over what territory exactly belonged to whom. So a few years later, the United States bellied up to the bar with some more gold, and asked if Mexico wanted to negotiate some more, American style, or take the gold and come to a final agreement. Mexico took the money, walked out of the bar, and we’ve been in agreement over the border ever since. Oh… wait…