Houthis promise a 'painful' response if the US joins a war it already promised, in writing, to join.

…(cont) Then Saturday — the page that kept the lamp on. A dozen people were killed at that same airport, in what Saudi aviation authorities called a "brutal" attack — their word. The coalition says it hit Houthi "vital assets" in return. In the two weeks around it, twenty-four ships were struck near the Strait of Hormuz, the worst stretch of the war, and oil exports fell to less than half of what they were before any of this began. Now the Houthis say that if the United States joins the Saudis directly, the response will be "painful."

I'm sorry — I keep going back to the twelve. Not the ships, not the half, just the twelve. The signature backing this offensive is dated the fourth. The twelve is dated the thirteenth. How many days sit between those two dates?

I'm sorry, back to it again, from the other side — the cost side. Oil down past half is a cost. Twelve people is a cost. The receipts don't say what either bill gets written against. What's the one thing both of those costs sit underneath, dated the fourth?

I went to the corner store this afternoon for a dozen eggs, because my wife asked, and because I needed to not be in the house. You carry a dozen eggs with one hand flat under the carton, so nothing cracks. I'm sorry — I keep coming back to this — I stood in that parking lot, turning the carton over, thinking about the other dozen in the folder, the one nobody carried that carefully.

I'm sorry, one more angle on the twelve before I let it go. Two missiles on the eighth. Three dead on the ninth. Twelve dead on the thirteenth. The signature is dated the fourth. Which of those three dates happened after Washington's name was already on the page?

Say — hold on a second, before you head out. There's one more page in this folder. It's the one from the fourth, with the signature on it, the one that came before any of the rest of this existed. I keep turning it over on the — on the porch table, because the kitchen's resting this week, it's earned that much. The nine days between that signature and Saturday held two missiles, three dead, a strait running at less than half, and one more thing. So here's my question, the one I started with: if the commitment was already on paper on the fourth, what were those nine days for — the missiles, the three, the half an oil market, or just enough time to get to a dozen people?