Make Every Year Count

It's such a waste getting older. You go through all the trouble of acquiring another year and do you even use it? What use was turning 14? I didn't bother getting a glider license. What use was 16? I didn't bother picking up a learners permit for several years. What use was 18? No one was running in that election that's done any good since.

I suppose I could just stop having birthdays, but the darn things are sequential. How will I know when I can find a little cabin and write these things while porch-sitting all day? I have the mindset down pretty well, but without a sixty-fifth how do I know when it becomes non-eccentric to do it?

From now on, no more more waste. Unfortunately that means I'll be starting a presidential campaign (I'll turn 35 in a congressional election year, but I figure by that time presidential campaigns will hit two years). Luckily I don't really care about any of the major issues; just about all of them fall into the "none of my business" category. As such I can turn to more last and important matters, like the flag.

Flags always have a number of stupid metaphors with long stories in a handy booklet that no one but tourists have a copy of. But I'm worried about the more immediate metaphors. Things like "Our citizens fall apart." "Our citizens get blown around." and "Our citizens only last ten years." Now I'd make the flag from a sheet of aluminum. Thing of what that says about a country: "Our citizens are so tough we'll hang five pounds of pointy metal from every balcony!"

And what of all this controversy about flag burning? With my way if you can set a sheet of aluminum on fire, I sure hope you're using a flag for such a cool demonstration of chemistry. There will be some people who call for restrictions on acid-based flag burnings. I feel confident however that there will be enough good from artistic flag etching to prevent this from becoming an issue.

The aluminum flag would be recyclable (and aluminum is one of those real recyclables, not the government-subsidized recyclables). Though it would hardly matter given its expected life time. Every house would also have a free lightening rod. It takes quite a log of seems to put together an American flag, but one of my aluminum ones could be stamped out in a school metal shop. No shortages during surges of nationalism. No need to buy imported flags.