Do you have a flag?

As most people probably already know The 2014 FIFA World Cup has been going on, this of course decides which countries exterminate their soccer(ahem FOOTBALL) players and which country turns their soccer (ahem FOOTBALL) players into gods.

Soccer (ahem FOOTBALL) is a fun game, I played it many years, enjoyed it, and yet I have no idea why (other than in America) people believe it to be worth killing over.  I just don’t get it. People take so much pride in their country’s team; well it’s more than pride, it’s a crazy obsession filled with blood lust, beer and half dressed women in the stands . . . oh.

But I’m not here to talk about the body count at any given soccer (ahem FOOTBALL) game, no I want to talk about Google.  Have you been going to Google’s home page during the battle for the world’s best soccer (ahem FOOTBALL) team?  Google, as they always seem to do, is paying tribute through Google Doodles to the 20014 World Cup.  Throughout the day they change their logo to correspond with what is going on with the games.  Who is going to play who, who is playing who, who beat who, and which county executed their losing players. Stuff like that. 

It’s really a very simple way to keep track of the games, just go to Google and instantly without knowing any details you can see what’s going on, couldn’t  be any more easy…. really…. just look….

See, the Google letters are dressed in the colors of the corresponding country’s flag … got it?

                               

Ummmm…..

Colors … flags … 

Yea.

I feel pretty stupid too; (and not because the letters aren’t always wearing any flag colors - damn Google) but because you think you know the flags of the world (or at least I did).  You see them all the time in the news, well, maybe not all of them, but most of the big players on the RISK board.  However, out of context, without any Jeopardy like clue to go with them, it’s amazing how hard it is to pick out a country’s flag, especially when the letters that spell Google are wearing them as shirts.  This isn’t simple at all, and apparently I’m an idiot when it comes to world flags.

It seems I’m not here to talk about Google at all, or about soccer (ahem FOOTBALL). No I’m here to talk about flags, those colorful banners that in some way encapsulate the ideology of a nation or entity of some sort.  They are representational of something much bigger than themselves, a logo, a symbol, an image woven from the heart of the people that is so strong they will defend it to the grave. 

Don’t believe me, hang an American flag the wrong way in front of a WWII vet and see what happens.  Don’t misunderstand, I’m not mocking him, I get it. I’m just trying to demonstrate how powerful a flag can be as a symbol of something bigger – pretty damn powerful.  And yet there are so many flags out there, anyone can get one, even pirates have one, that’s how universal they are.  Obviously some carry a lot more clout than others; no one is yielding to the Taco Bell Flag (yes there actually is one) let alone laying down their life for a chalupa. Give me chalupa or give me death!  Doesn’t inspire so much does it?  Frances Scott Key never wrote The Bell-Spangled Banner, so it’s safe to say, you need more than just a flag and a burrito for people to defend you to the death.

But we’re not here to discuss American Revolutionary era gastronomy, are we? No. We are talking about dying for something worth dying for, a cause, a way of life for our families, a system that will endure to further us as a society.  And I’m not so sure a kid’s game qualifies, but I’ve been wrong before.  Maybe the World Cup is just another battle field where they use a ball instead of a gun to prove which country is superior, better to be punished with a red card than need the Red Cross, I suppose.  A way to determine which country is superior, one that America has no chance of winning. And maybe THAT’s the point!

Then again - bullshit, it’s just a game.  Like every other game, like Football (ahem… you know American FOOTBALL,, quarterbacks, punts, touchdowns… yea that one), basketball or Parcheesi .  Yes Parcheesi, without the stadiums and television rights, but still a game, a past time, entertainment sans cheerleaders. And who wants to riot over Parcheesi?    

But this isn’t about Parcheesi, no, it’s about Football (ahem SOCCER) and how Patrick Henry’s wife didn’t put extenders and fillers in his food so that he would never end up with severe stomach distress that would cause him to search on Google, only to see Brazilian women wearing nothing but a thong and some face paint of some flag that, as it turns out I may or may not recognize because clearly I didn’t pay enough attention in Flag class.   

I’m your ice cream man, stop me when I'm passin' by…

Sometimes I do thing that I believe in but still goes against what I was told.  There’s this weird thing that goes on inside me, I wouldn’t call it a conflict, more of an awareness that I’m bucking the system and I don’t care; lessons learned from our parents that need to be broken.  Of course then there are the ones I know I’m channeling my dad, I can’t begin to tell you how much my inner child cringes every time I tell Peyton to close the door behind her.  I wonder if she’ll ever remember or care; I wonder why I never cared when I was her age?

But this isn’t about letting out the cold air on a hot day, this is about that annoying high pitch musical frozen sugar dealer that drives the big white van.  There is something about hearing that music from 3 blocks away that stirs some primal feeling in every child in the world; much more powerful than Pavlov’s bell to dogs.  I’m almost convinced that a kid doesn’t even have the ability to not react when they hear it.  The promise of an un-anticipated, un-planned completely random dessert at a time in the day when one isn’t normally allowed - JACKPOT!  What’s not to love?

Well for parents, there is a lot not to love, we know we are over paying, we know they already had their allotted artificially filled sugary rations for the day, we know sometimes kids have to hear the word no.  And for me I also know that Peyton has never, not once, ever actually finished anything from the frozen treat pusher man.  In fact at any given time there are probably at least half a dozen unfinished ice cream products in our freezer that we are saving for her because she requested to “finish it later” but never has.

The lead up to the AHA! moment.  The over-priced, frozen push-up, gestapo came by last night and in typical kid fashion, as if they are somehow programmed to turn into begging zombies that need ice cream in order to survive, she came running out of the depths of childhood playtime, stopped everything she was doing with pinpoint accuracy and exclaimed, as if we had no idea, THE ICE CREAM MAN IS HERE!!!!!  

At that exact moment, all sorts of things go through my head instantly: did she eat dinner yet? Did she already have a dessert? Do I have a few bucks in my pocket or do I need to go get my wallet? Should she be eating ice cream now? Why don’t they make frozen vegetable pops?  Why does that song hurt my ears as an adult but not as a child? Should I get one for myself, even though I’m not hungry? And the weird question that sparked this whole diatribe … What about the 156 uneaten ice cream/ice pops in the freezer? Why can’t I just point out there are plenty, already paid for, half eaten, going to waste, starving kids in Africa would love, ice pops in the freezer that nobody wanted 5 minutes ago? WHY?????

And then it hit me, luckily before I even opened my mouth; because, because she’s a child. And for whatever reason sometimes some childhood experiences need to be experienced. It really doesn’t matter that no one is ever going to eat those 5 thousand, 3 hundred and twenty six half eaten pops in the freezer, it doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much for one pop as it does a whole box of them at the supermarket, it doesn’t matter that she already had a few cookies after dinner.  It’s because she is experiencing that promise of something amazing, that childhood rush, the glory of cold sweet windfall that no amount of planning could compare.  And even though that moment only last 10 minutes or so, for those 10 minutes she discovered gold and the euphoria that accompanies it.  What tastes better than that on a hot sunny evening?  

… yea and one creamsicle too?