No doubt everybody’s all excited to do some waving of the good old stars and stripes today, because it’s Fannie Flagg Day. OK, well, it’s not actually about Fannie (whose real name is Patricia Neal, which she obviously couldn’t use for professional purposes ‘cuz we already had one of them). I find this ironic, because Patricia Neal, as you no doubt recall, was responsible for the rise of the greatest American patriot prior to Glenn Beck, Lonesome Rhodes, in “A Face in the Crowd.” Plus, Fannie Flagg, Patricia Neal, and Andy Griffith all have Bacon Numbers of two. Coincidence? I think not.

So, anyhow, I just kind of assumed that Flag Day was an American thing, just because it seems so…. Stupid. A day to honor a piece of cloth, which we also honor in song before pretty much every sporting event, and which I, personally, was forced to pledge “allegiance” to every school day until, I think, 6th grade (not real sure when it stopped – I don’t think I had to do it in high school).

So since all that singin’ and praisin’ and pledgin’ clearly aint enough, it seems entirely logical that we’d come up with some bullshit holiday for it (which, I am truly appalled to say, we don’t get a goddamn day off from work for, which I find absolutely outrageous).

And, sure enough, this day is indeed a uniquely American thing (like working three jobs to pay the rent or “supporting the troops” while calling Bowe Bergdahl a traitor who should have been left a Taliban prisoner in Afghanistan). According to the National Constitution Center’s “Brief History of Flag Day”, today’s holiday commemorates

…the day the first flag resolution was passed.

On June 14, 1777…the Second Continental Congress passed a flag resolution stating:

Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.

So, hu-rah and all that. That “brief history” page has comments from true patriots, like:

I’M A PROUD AMERICAN. MY HUSBAND SERVED OUR COUNTRY AND MY STEP SON…IS SERVING RIGHT NOW. WE FLY OUR FLAG WITH PRIDE.

and

I love our flag and am proud of it’s history !!!!

Yes, I AM PROUD OF IT IS HISTORY, TOO !!!!

I personally don’t own a flag, mostly because if I bought one, I’d then have to go and find a poll to run it up to see if somebody would salute it. Also because I don’t believe my love of country and/or patriotism has much of anything to do with a piece of cloth (though, as flags go, I’ve always been quite fond of the aesthetics of ours – though the Union Jack is pretty cool, too). Clearly, if I was supposed to take this day seriously, they’d have made it a Monday holiday and there’d be picnics and parades and fireworks and all kinds of good old fashioned American-values type of celebratin’ going on.

I do have one small flag-related story that I will share, however.

Back when I was just a tender youth at the age of 17 or so, I worked at Sears. I worked Toys and Lawn and Garden, which were located next to Hardware, which I used to cover when the sales people took a break (they worked commission, and it really used to piss them off if I sold anything). Anyhow, so I’m working there one day, and a guy comes up to the register in Hardware to buy an American Flag (I have no idea whether or not we sold flags in the Hardware Department or not, but whatever).

So I ring it up and it was like $10.70 or something (ten bucks for the flag plus sales tax), and he says to me, “you can’t charge sales tax on the flag.”

And I’m, like, “huh?”

And he’s, like, “there’s no sales tax on the flag. I’m a fireman – I know these things.”

Clearly, there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it, ‘cuz I’m just a friggin’ high school kid working part time in Toys and Lawn and Garden covering the Hardware Department and it’s like Sunday afternoon so there aren’t any important people around who can override the sales tax thing, so I’m like, “…um…uh…well, uh….”

So to make a long story short(er), he suggests that, since it aint about the 70¢, it’s the principle of the thing, I should take his name and contact info and when my boss comes around to have him check it out and they can send him a refund. And that sounds good to me.

So I get his name, and it’s Thomas Corcoran, and I think, “Corcoran? Fireman?”

And I go, “you’re fuckin’ Tommy Corcoran!?” OK, well, the “fuck” part I said to myself, but, yeah, he’s Tommy Corcoran, who I don’t recall ever meeting but he’s my mother’s cousin and I remember us driving by his firehouse a time or two and waving to him when he was hanging out outside.

So there you go. And as it turns out, he was absolutely correct that you can’t charge sales tax (at least in NY) on the flag and they absolutely refunded not only the tax but the whole purchase price, ‘cuz that’s just the way Sears used to roll back in those days.

So if you head out to Walmart today to buy an American flag (made in China, no doubt) as all true patriots should, make sure they don’t try to screw you on the sales tax.

This is ‘merica, goddamn it, and we love Old Glory.