"I was finally getting payback for not reading those long, boring articles about eminent domain. But my bigger panic was over what to do with it. I'm not a flag-waving kind of guy, but I knew damn well that I couldn't just throw it in the trash. Throwing away a flag is very, very bad."
"In a grueling 13-hour span, Massengale had flagged nearly every house in Beachwood Canyon and the Oaks -- 2,000 homes in all, at a cost of $2,000 -- while also putting flags and red-white-and-blue ribbons on roadside signs, lampposts and telephone poles. I vowed to never get on Massengale's bad side; there would be starred-and-striped horse heads everywhere."
"It was a sweet gesture, if one that hinted a little too desperately that the real estate market is softening. But it threw me into a moral tizzy. Why didn't I want a flag in front of my house?"
A homeowner discovers an American flag planted outside his house by Victoria Massengale, a real estate agent who distributed 2,000 flags throughout Beachwood Canyon and the Oaks as a Fourth of July promotional gesture. Initially panicked about proper flag disposal etiquette and unable to throw it away, the homeowner retrieves the flag after his wife discards it. The note reveals the gesture's commercial purpose. The agent's ambitious 13-hour flagging campaign, costing $2,000 and covering homes, signs, lampposts, and telephone poles, suggests a softening real estate market. The incident prompts the homeowner to question his own resistance to displaying the flag and his relationship with patriotic symbols.
#real-estate-marketing #flag-etiquette #patriotism-and-symbols #consumer-behavior #humor-and-social-commentary
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