I went into work and the place was complete chaos! People were coming in droves because they knew we were one of the few places in town that actually sold flags. Unfortunately we sold out quickly. Then customers wanted ANYTHING red,white and blue or yellow. We even ran out of the homemade bows we were making. Then they wanted the scraps of ribbon that were left over, so we put those out and gave them to people. Everybody wanted to fly a ribbon from their car antennae or put out a flag.
We were taking up a collection for the Red Cross. Even small children were putting their change from their candy in the jar. (no we weren't asking them to do it) The little ones didn't understand what was going on, they just knew everybody around them was sad because a plane hit a building and they wanted to help. I had little old ladies telling me they were ready to "get the sons of bitches!" The level of ferver was quite amazing actually.
One man threw a fit on me because we were out of flags. He started yelling that the manufacturers should be cranking them out because they knew everybody wanted one. After a couple of minutes of him lecturing me (like I could personally do something about the situation) I stopped him cold. I told him that we had had the same flags for years, gathering dust on the shelves, because nobody was buying them. I pointed out to him that "some of us already had our flags BEFORE this happened!" He just looked at me and slinked out of the store with his tail between his legs.
It is a shame that patriotism has died down since then. Not many are flying flags and you don't see ribbons on cars anymore. I wish the war would have lasted as long as peoples enthusiasm did. I wish too that the other countries would listen when we declare victory! Things would be so much simpler if they agreed the war was over when we declared it was.
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