Do You Hev A Flag?

Right where we wanted to put a driveway stood a fire hydrant.  The driveway was for a detached garage for our little runabout boat.  Okay, the fire hydrant wasn’t smack in the middle, but it impeded our ability to back the boat into the garage, a difficult maneuver even when one has a driveway the size of an airport runway.  The only place for the detached garage where we’d have access from the road, was behind the fire hydrant.  The city said they’d move the fire hydrant but it would be a guh-jillion dollars.

Our neighbor had a suggestion.  At least for the purposes of this blog, it was a neighbor.  Hubby certainly would never think of such a nefarious plan.  Pay the garbage man a hundred bucks to run over it with his truck.  Then when the city came out to replace it, they’d find a driveway where it used to be.  It would have to be put 10 feet further west.

Of course, that never happened.  Besides, our garbage man couldn’t hit the side of a barn, much less a skinny little fire hydrant.  Even if we painted a big bull’s-eye on the corner of the driveway, he never puts the garbage can down where he finds it.  Instead, it is replaced right in the middle of our driveway where we nearly back the car over it every Wednesday morning.  At the last minute, we spot it and have to jump out and move it.  Our garbage man has a very funny sense of humor.

So hubby came up with a plan to help back the boat up into the garage.  He attached an orange flag to a long piece of pipe.  He inserts this in a slightly bigger pipe standing upright near the fire hydrant, and then when he is backing the boat in, he can see if he is going to hit the thing.

Flags seem to bear remarkable powers to save or conquer.  Eddie Izzard, a British comedian, commented that this was how empires of yore got to be so big.  The Brits or Christopher Columbus or some conqueror like Cortez would land in far flung foreign lands and proclaim, “I hereby claim this land for my mother county!”  The locals or natives would come rushing up and say, “You can’t do that.  We live here.”  “AHHHHH,” the conquerors would say, in a very upper crust accent, “But do you hev a flag?”  “A flag? What’s that?” ask the natives.  “No flag? Well, then,” the conquerors said.  “We hereby proclaim this land for our mother country.”  They’d plant a flag, and that would be that until unsavory rebellions yielded it otherwise.

Our daughter, the fifth grade teacher, lets her kids make sugar cube castles at winter break, formerly called Christmas vacation.  Because she has seen Eddie Izzard’s comedy sketch on flags, she asks them, twinkle in eye, “But do you hev a flag?” “A flag?” they ask.  “Yes! You must have a flag!” she warns, “Or anyone could come in and conquer you.”  She shows them pictures of Christopher Columbus coming ashore with his rowboat and planting a flag.

Flags promptly are colored and displayed from the topmost sugar cubes.  Often present to help during class parties and art activities, I find it interesting to see what they put on their flags. The school is in an area heavily populated by immigrants, and the children have seen many different flags.  At least twenty five flags from around the world bedeck the front hallway, welcoming all.

So what do the children put on their flags?  Some draw their own portraits.  Some put the flag from their native country on one turret and an American flag on another. Many of them put crosses, for no one would attack the cross of Jesus, they innocently tell me.  But every single one of them believes a flag more effective than a cannon.  If that’s all it takes, then God bless ‘em. 

Meanwhile, the fire hydrant flag has been pressed into service elsewhere.  The five little neighborhood girls, ages 12, 10, 9, 6 and 5, have discovered that we are babysitting the twin grandchildren this week.  Consequently, the doorbell rings every twenty minutes, which cause a nuclear explosion of barks from our cockapoo Huckleberry, whose first (and last) line of defense is hardly a flag, but rather the yappiest barks he can muster.  If the babies are napping, well, that nap is over.

So, the little girls are allowed to ring the doorbell only if the babies are awake and ready to receive company.  We took the fire hydrant flag and put it in a holder we have on our deck for tiki torches.  Only when the flag is flying may the girls come over. Flag goes up, within 30 seconds, the doorbell will ring.  But that’s okay, they are welcomed and needed.  Yesterday they came streaming through the door like a river of blond hair and eddied around the babies, bringing with them presents of toys and letters to the babies telling them how much they are loved and how cute they are. 

Both the babies wanted their bottles at the same time, so I parked them on the couch in the older girls’ arms and they got to feed them. 

The two littlest girls wanted something to love, so Huckleberry sufficed.

My husband laughs when I put the flag out and can’t resist saying “Do you hev a flag?” 

I sure do.  But I’m not the one doing the conquering.  The story ends differently this time.