Your father was never in a war. The military didn't want him because he walked funny, like a gay chicken, and though he was never diagnosed with a physical infirmity, his way of walking was enough for the draft office to send him home.
"But I want to raise a flag on a foreign beach, like those guys!" he shouted to the man looking for kids to send to Viet Nam.
"Maybe you can do your part by going home and learning to sew," the military man giggled. "Someone's got to make the flag before it gets raised, you know."
Your father took the man's advice and started a custom flag-making business. He distributes his share of American flags, especially around the Fourth of July, but his specialty is the custom design.
"A group of us meet every month and collect tadpoles from the creek," a man seeking a flag might say to your father. "We're all in our forties."
"I've got it," your father will say. Then he'll sketch out a pattern of earth tones with a solid block in the corner containing three wormy looking creatures held in a palm worn down with time.
"I'm a serial killer and I like to stick a little flag inside the eye-socket of my victims," another customer might tell your father. "Fucks with the police something fierce."
Your father will ask the killer how many people he plans to kill, then he'll quickly cover a sheet of sketch paper in blood red colored pencil. In the corner will be a block of stars, just like the American flag, but three of the stars will be upside down. "You stick this in your third victim. I'll need to give you one for every person you kill. This is going to be expensive."
The serial killer would place the order and would then start saving money before he went on his killing spree. Your father might end up getting stuck with the flags if the killer came to his senses or got caught molesting a farmer's crop or something else that would send him to jail, but your father was the kind of man who would take the risk for the sake of his vision. Compromising a design was a far greater sacrifice than the monetary investment.
Your father's never made you a flag before. Today, as a grown man, you're going to go into his shop and place your order.
"I want a flag that says Oops on it so I can raise it in the air every time I fart."
Your father won't sketch right away. First he'll need to wipe the tears from his eyes. He always dreamed that one day you would come to him like this. Cry with him.
Finally, he'll wipe his nose, take a breath, and he'll say, "Do you want 'Oops' with an explanation point or a frownie face?"
Happy Flags Of Our Fathers Day!
