It was just before July 4 and my son and I were at the grocery store. We were getting ready for the (long) weekend and had just paid and were leaving when we came face-to-face with a store employee.
“Would you like a free flag?”
It was one of those clip-on flags for your car that clip to the window. Being one who never passes on something free, I took one. “Can’t get much better than a free flag!” I said, leaving, smiling at the brilliance of it. Free flags. Who wouldn’t want one?
I didn’t put it on the car. It didn’t even come out of the protective plastic wrapper. Then the 4th came and went, and the flag continued to languish in the back of the car.
What do you do with a cheap free flag that you got at the store when its time has come and gone? Do you burn it, like you’re supposed to do with other bigger flags? Do you just pitch it? How respectful do you have to be to a free flag?
It ended up in the garbage can today. Take that, free flag.
