Last year, I attached my Progress Pride flag to my fence with twist ties, but three days later it was gone. Stolen. I could not understand why anyone would steal a Pride flag unless they were homophobic, or compulsive thieves, or twist tie collectors. Whoever they were, they took my flag and that p*ride*d me off.

So this year, I ordered a new Progress Pride flag, but it still hasn’t arrived. Fortunately, I have a number of flags in reserve. I thought about raising the San Jose Sharks flag instead, but I couldn’t think of a good reason to fly it, so I gave that flag to a charity thrift store.

In its place I raised my Straight Ally flag. It has enough rainbow to show my Pride Month support and enough additional design features to keep most people guessing. In case you were wondering, the rainbow elements are in the shape of an A for Ally, and the black and white stripes are indicative of my straightness … or so I am given to understand. Regardless, it is a Pride flag and it is big enough to fit the available space.

I have hung my Straight Ally flag on my fourth floor balcony rail and so there is no way anyone is going to steal this flag!

It is unstealable in part because it is on a fourth floor balcony but also because it is secured with zip ties instead of twist ties. I defy anyone to unzip a zip tie without either intense concentration and/or pruning shears. So, if an apartment-building-wall-climbing thief chose to scale the heights of my condo complex without shears, he or she would be completely nonplussed by my flag-hanging security determination.

The would-be thief might also be interested to know that I attached the flag to the zip ties on one side with a diaper pin. A diaper pin! Yes, indeed, I still have a couple of diaper pins left over from when my children were infants over forty years ago.

Back in the day, before disposable diapers were easily affordable, we used cloth diapers. They were basically squares of towelling that we learned how to fold and pin when taking pre-natal classes. The pins are a lot like regular safety pins, but larger. They also have a cap that clips over the top when the pin is in place so that the point cannot stab the baby. They are very sturdy, useful, and, obviously, safe. Consequently, they are too practical to discard, unlike oh, let’s say, a San Jose Sharks flag.

Inadvertently, it seems I have used a symbol of my children’s infancy and dependency to support a symbol of their adult sexual emancipation. And that, perhaps, is how it should be.