USA. A supermarket register. The man ahead of me handed me a small plastic bar, and I believe we signed a treaty. You know this bar. It lies on the conveyor belt between his groceries and mine. Two ounces of plastic. No lock. No blade. No authority of any kind. And it prevents ALL war. His ground beef ends. The bar stands. My vegetables begin. There has never been a dispute at this border. There will never be a dispute. In Japan, we would accomplish this with careful spacing and profound mutual anxiety. Here, a stick does it. My country needed four hundred years and three shogunates to draw borders this stable. America draws them at every register, every few seconds, with a stick, and nobody even looks down. When he placed it for me — placed it FOR me, an act of pure statesmanship — I thanked him with the depth the moment deserved. I may have bowed. He said: “Yep.” Yep. The sound of a man who does not know he is a diplomat. The best ones never do. But here is what shook me. At the end, the cashier picked up our sacred border and TOSSED it into a little slot. Casually. Like trash. The treaty, concluded, simply ends. No archive. No ceremony. The border rests, and waits to serve the next two nations. Two ounces. No army. Undefeated since the invention of the conveyor belt. A border does not ask to be feared. It lies down, and is obeyed. I hand the bar to the person behind me now. Every visit. Personally. Before they can reach for it. The response is always a small, surprised “oh — thanks,” and then peace between our houses. Yesterday a man received my bar, paused, and handed THE NEXT one to the woman behind him. It spreads, America. Statecraft is contagious, and your registers are the academy. Yep.