Where Was Your Flag on the 4th of July?

I’m not a bad American. I love this country. I’m just a bad rememberer. The thing is that on the 4th of July the reminders were everywhere so how I forget remains a mystery. One of my friends posted on Facebook how she went for a five mile run and was sad because there were so few flags being flown, other people were sharing pictures of flags, taking pictures of flags, changing their profile pictures to flags, and the night before my wife said, “You didn’t put out the flag.” I replied, “That’s because it’s not the 4th of July, yet. I’ll put it out tomorrow.” I said this with all of the conviction in the world, confident in my ability to remember the next day to fly our flag.

So there it was, the 4th of July, my wife and I are off on an adventure, she’s driving Mr. Andy, and I go “Crap. I didn’t put out the flag.” I felt sad. I felt like a bad American. I couldn’t believe I actually forgot. Our flag was still stowed away in the closet.

I generally do my best to put out the old, family flag on holidays, try to remember to bring it in that same night because it doesn’t have a spotlight on it, and be sad, also, at not seeing flags out in front of homes. Yet here I was, adding to the epidemic of Americans not flying their flags.

Part of me wishes I could just say “Siri, remind me on every holiday to fly our flag.”, but sadly it just makes a reminder that reads “On every holiday fly our flag.” Siri isn’t actually smart enough to tag it to the dates involved. Even then, why would I think Siri would be the reminder to put all other reminders to shame, and be the one I would actually listen to? Nope, my end problem was just being too lazy, too procrastinationly, and too, sadly, being a bad, flag-flyer.

I did tell Siri, “Remind me on September 6th at 7PM, take flag out of closet.” Why the day before Labor Day? Because when the flag is in the closet it’s out of sight, out of mind, even with my Facebook friends blasting me reminders, but I’m confident just seeing the flag out of the closet on Labor Day morning will trigger a burst of “Will you just put out the flag, already?”

I hope to be a better American on Labor Day, but my not flying our flag did make me wonder: Where was your flag on the 4th of July?”

That’s it for this one! L8R!!