The Little Flag

This past Thursday was September 11th and also the first home game for BYU football.

As we walked into the game, they gave out these mini American Flags. 

To most people, these are just American Flags. 

To me, these are a reminder of a difficult lesson I learned at the young age of 4.

Anyone who knows me knows by now that anything that could go wrong always does. Any freak accident that could happen has already happened to me.

Keep that in mind while I take you back in time 16 years.

It was late enough in the evening that it was dark outside. Completely dark. My mom was in the kitchen making dinner, and I was in the dining room walking in circles around the dining table. My dining room had carpet.  It was the nastiest brown carpet that was so old it had wrinkles in it from the years of wear on it. In my hand, I held a mini American Flag quite like the one shown above. The only difference was that instead of a hollow white post, mine had a solid black post with a golden ball ornamenting the top.

However, in my imagination, it wasn't a flag at all. It was my microphone, and I was singing into the microphone. I don't remember what I was singing, but I was singing quietly.

As soon as my mom realized what was going on, she said, "Alice Jane, put the flag down. You will hurt yourself."

I knew I wasn't going to hurt myself. 

I ignored her as she continued making dinner. 

It wasn't more than a few moments later, my foot caught on the wrinkle in the carpet. I tripped and didn't have much time to catch myself.

I screamed, but it was too late. 

I felt the flag stab my throat.

The flag had gone in my mouth and punctured my tonsil. 

The next thing I remember is sitting with my dad in the Urgent Care. I was sitting in a chair holding my baby doll afraid of what the doctor was going to say.

I sat with my dad for a while, and he even helped me pick the bread out of my doll's mouth that had been stuck in there ever since I tried feeding her.

There was a fish tank in that doctor's office, too.

I thought it was the coolest thing.

I don't remember anything the doctor said, but I remember having to take medicine for a while. 

I also remember my tonsils being huge until I had them removed in 4th grade. Even until the day I had them removed, you could see a little imprint of the scar from my wound. 

There are two things I want everyone to get from reading this. 

First, obey your mom. 

Second, don't use these flags for a microphone. They aren't really microphones.