Last week, my wife happened to be in Washington's Union Station. She happened by an Ikea, um, presentation. There were (as she described them) "way-too-skinny male models dressed up as Secret Service guys" and folks handing out "Embrace Change" buttons done up nicely in yellow and blue, the colors of the Swedish flag.

This makes sense for Ikea. Its main market is college students and folks far too earnest to worry about something as trivial as making some real money--liberal Democrats, in other words. I imagine there's an Ikea somewhere that has customers who voted for John McCain, but the one in College Park, Md., is probably not one of them. In any case, identifying with Barack Obama can only be good for business, especially when you see that the full slogan is actually "Embrace domestic change." Do that, and the next thing you know you're loading up the Prius with flimsy furniture.

Ikea isn't the only company jumping on the bandwagon. CBS, in a marketing move unthinkable in the days of long-time chairman Bill Paley, promoted "Yes We Can Monday" all throughout Sunday night's Pittsburgh-Baltimore game. The full title of that campaign ought to be "Yes, we hope we can make you laugh considering how crappy our sitcoms are on Mondays," but perhaps concision is best.

Giant Supermarkets (owned by a Dutch company) has been running large ads that say "Change is coming" and, not incidentally, congratulating soon-to-be Prez Obama. This is also a useful strategy, as most Giant stores around here have the reputation of sitting about one step higher than a recycling bin in terms of ambience and overall store "experience." Giant has been renovating stores like crazy--thus "change is coming"--and they, too, figured it couldn't hurt to hitch themselves to the Obama wave.

It's a big wave, too. His approval rating sits somewhere between 65 and 80 percent, which is astonishing when you consider he didn't start a war to get that kind of support.

The truth is that people want Obama to succeed. A fair portion of that sentiment is selfish. After all, if Obama succeeds, then our country will have climbed out of the crapper. Only the most die-hard partisans actually want Obama to fail. I never wanted our current Prez to fail. I even wrote that I hoped I was wrong about the war. I wasn't, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Rather, it makes me wonder what the hell I could have done.

But let's not dwell on the final days of disgrace. They'll be done soon enough, and then a new day will arise. It will arise cloudy and kinda cold, but the sun will be in the sky. Somewhere.

The street I live on has already filled up with out-of-town cars. We don't have any driveways on our block, so this has created something of a parking situation. It's not dire, though. Our neighbors two doors down threw an inaugural bash yesterday, and everyone was in a good mood. Actually, that's not true. Everyone was ebullient, even those whose faces were still draped in the astonishment of the moment that will arrive at 12:01 p.m. (or so) on Tuesday. These folks were mostly older than me, and so they weren't taking off their clothes and dancing on the tables. Of course, we had to leave early to hit another party, so maybe I missed that. Given the libations present, I wouldn't be surprised to hear tell of something scandalous. That'd be nice. My neighborhood needs a little scandal.

Change is coming. We do have to embrace it--we have no choice. Some of these changes will not be good. But I think we'll muddle through, and I have every confidence that our new Prez will do the due diligence before he flies into action. It's nice to know that serious people are back in charge of things. That's a change we've needed for a long time.

The inauguration of Barack Obama doesn't make me want to shop at Ikea. Needing some cheap kitchen implements sends me there. But it's kinda fun to see all the Obama adulation. For a few days, we can feel good about ourselves. Then we have to get to work. It's gonna be a long, cold winter. But the harder we shovel, the faster we'll clear the path.

Jon Worley will be somewhere in Washington, D.C., in Inauguration Day. He's hoping to make the Lincoln Memorial, but he knows a few pubs along the way where he and his hardy band of Maryland adventurers can stop off for provisions.