Why the hell do people buy home fireworks?How many fingers and eyebrows do they have to lose? How many trailer parks have to burn down before they learn?
What parent in his right mind with children would set off something called a 12 in
ch
“strike force missile”?Or a “Mad Dog”
“Bazooka Bear”
“Titanium Cracker”
“Dragon’s Wrath”
“Big Mama Jama"
“Brutal Force”
“Nuke Power”
“Pull String Grenade”
“Assorted Color Ammo Smoke”
“Caliber Blast”
“Car Bomb”
“Big Earthquake”
“Jumboshell Fountain”
“Pyrogyro”
“Cracker Jack in a Box”
“Deadly Fire”
“Battle of New Orleans”
“Pay Back”
“Mucho Grande – small” (isn’t that an oxymoron?)
“Air Raid”
Or of course the ever popular “So X*@! Good”?
Explain to me where these are “safe and SANE”.
And this year there's something even more dangerous:
NOT WEARING A MASK.
With the "Bazooka Bear" you could lose three fingers. Not wearing a mask could cost you your life.
I'm staying home this Independence Day. Next year hopefully I'll have way more to celebrate.
Happy 4th of July. Don't do anything stupid. Be safe.
What parent in his right mind with children would set off something called a 12 inch “strike force missile”?
ReplyDeleteThe kind of parent who would attend a Trump rally without a mask and will still vote for him even after it's been revealed he's a traitor who was told that Putin paid terrorists to kill American soldiers and he did nothing about it because Putin has the video footage of him with Russian hookers performing a golden shower on a hotel bed.
I'll never understand it. When I was a kid back in the early 70's, maybe the biggest item would be a cone of something that gave off a show of sparks for 10 seconds or so. Or you held sparklers in your hands and twirled them around. It was fun then, but now it seems quaint. Today's "safe and sane" fireworks seem to be surplus from the military approved by bomb sniffing dogs.
ReplyDeleteOn my street there are many very large mature curbside trees with branches that hang over the cars. Every year one or more branches catch fire and every succeeding year the same morons go out there and do it again. The fireworks are outlawed in our town, but right next to us here in L.A. County is an unincorporated city where all the "fundraising" fireworks are sold. Banning them here is wasted effort when you can travel a mile to buy them across the boundaries. L.A. County didn't ban them during the drought so there's no great expectations that they'll ban them now. It's one of the few issues I'll go full grumpy old man about.
We've reached the point where "Don't do anything stupid" is necessary advice.
ReplyDelete"Don't do anything stupid" is probably the most valuable piece of advice, and judging by observation, the hardest to follow. For me an easier guideline is "Don't believe anything stupid."
ReplyDeleteI have no sense of humor about home fireworks.
ReplyDeleteKen, you might enjoy a game that surfaces periodically on Twitter - https://twitter.com/REDROMINA/status/1278723367412137986 being today's example - in which people are asked to describe a favorite movie in as boring terms as possible.
wg
Wendy
DeleteThat's a great thread!
I'm not on twitter, so I'll put my contribution here:
Awkward, nerdy journalist has a problem with lead.
I love sparklers. That's as adventurous as I get.
ReplyDeleteI saw a photo of the Feces-in-Chief posing in front of Mount Rushmore. From where he stood, Washington and Jefferson were looking in the other direction, TR looked like he was glaring, and Lincoln had a slight smirk I'd never noticed before. Seems about right.
ReplyDeleteWell there were no fireworks on TV back then, so unless you lived in a city that put on an official fireworks show, it was the backyard or nothing. So Dad would go to the fireworks stand and buy one of those family assortments. We would start with the crappy stuff, like the snakes- which made Dad grumble-'who wants to see that?". Then we would run around with the sparklers. Next came the Whistling Petes which only made Dad grumble more. The finale would be the fountains which made us go Ooh and Aah. The backyard would be full of smoke, which always prompted Dad to comment that we were seeing ten dollars of his paycheck going up in smoke. And the cat would hate us for the next 24 hours. But hey, we had to do something.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been self censored.
ReplyDeleteHappy 4th everbody.
M.B.
It's OK, Mike, we'll cope without your comment saying you believe Trump when he said no one ever briefed him about Putin paying bounties for dead American soldiers, just like you believe everything else he says. Bet you nodded when he said in a speech last year that the 1775 revolutionary army took over the airports.
DeleteHappy 4th July.
Here's a trick I thought of last year, when weather nixed going to my sister's town's fireworks. Perfect for this COVID-19 Fourth. Just before the fireworks on TV are set to begin, I put the sound down on the TV, set YouTube ready to play Inna Gadda Da Vida (full album version), headphones plugged into the computer. Once they start, I watch the display while listening to Iron Butterfly play. It's quite an experience - and I don't use recreational drugs, either. Any variation should work (CD, no headphones, etc.), I'd assume. Last year, the song ran out before the on-TV fireworks did.
ReplyDeleteRemember "He who has a fifth on the Fourth may not come forth on the fifth!"
ReplyDeleteHow long before some fireworks company sues a state or town that bans them claiming they're violating the 2nd Amendment? "My customers have the RIGHT to bear an M-80!"
I did something stupid. I watched Trump's Rushmore "speech". He was using words like "manifest destiny" while off camera National Guard were rounding up and arresting Lakota protesters while Trump supporters yelled "go back where you came from!". The Guard had been transported to the site in Red Cross vehicles, just to add that smidgen of war crime.
ReplyDeletevery loud in Albany, NY for the last damn month.
ReplyDeleteWinston Churchill said: You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
ReplyDeleteWe are in the process of trying every stupid thing possible before doing the right thing.
Hope the planet doesn't run out of oxygen first.
Unsafe and Insane
ReplyDeleteThumbs...
ReplyDelete*bang*
Stumps up!
I'm happy to report I "played" with these sort of fireworks throughout childhood and I'm now NOT typing this with my nose. All ten fingers reporting for duty.
ReplyDeleteBut I'll never understand how anyone could lose a finger with these things. It's simple: pull out fuse to maximum length away from the firework, light the end of the fuse, then run like hell for cover. Only true idiots and Wile E. Coyote impersonators blow themselves up. As for fires, keep a hose or a buck of water handy. Also, living in the country helps. Don't try this in the city, ya dingalings.
OK, Karen
ReplyDelete