While You're Lighting Up Fireworks, Someone's Home Goes Up in Flames
Fourth of July, along with New Year's Eve, is why human beings will never change
Well, I survived another Fourth of July.
For a moment there, I thought our house would go up in smoke from all the fireworks and firecrackers going off right in front of our yard. It sounded so close, it shook the walls.
The longer I live on this earth, the less I want to be around people and their bizarre traditions (addictions). We’re worse than Pavlov’s dogs.
A few of the thoughtful ones, every year, leave cautionary tales and safety tips for surviving holidays that involve lighting up shit on public and private property…usually the elderly and those with pets.
But it’s like telling high schoolers not to buy drugs from that street dealer in Edmonds. They’ll look you up and down, assess whether the vessel (what you look like, if you’re a parent or a cool kid) is worth listening to, and then do whatever the fuck they want anyway.
The lucky ones walk away, relatively unscathed, to live another day. The others, well, they’re dead of fentanyl poisoning, aren’t they?
Try telling an Asian in Hawaii to stop setting off fireworks on Lunar New Year. It’s illegal in some areas, everywhere, but nobody pays attention and cops look the other way. At least until someone blows off a hand or someone’s house goes up in flames, which happened in L.A. last night.
Is it worth the cost of a life or the home you pay 6.9 percent mortgage fees on, barely scraping by?
Who's paying for the damages? Who's cleaning up all this mess? Why don't people pick up after themselves?
Who's liable?
Usually, my husband’s off on gigs in another state around this time of the year. But this year, he stayed home for Fourth of July. He’ll be leaving tomorrow, though. When I’m left alone with our dog (who doesn’t mind fireworks, thank god) and neighbors are blowing shit up 10 feet from my driveway, I’m so scared I’ll end up homeless.
What happens then? “Insurance covers that,” my husband replied, before heading back out to mow the lawn.
Not good enough.
I was a nervous wreck when we lived in Mukilteo in the middle of /surrounded by a forest.
I keep threatening to go somewhere they don’t celebrate. But is there such a thing on New Year’s Eve?
The day after, I get to scroll through everybody’s social media, bragging about the many friends and family they have doing the Fourth of July things together, like an Ozempic commercial. The asshole in me doesn’t think, “Oh good, they’re having fun,” like everybody else would.
It thinks, “Fuck them,” and other bad thoughts.
I thought you were suffering alone.
Must be nice to be rich enough to go wherever you want at the drop of a hat.
Do you ever have a down time?
How many fucking friends do you have anyway?
No wonder I always hated your ass.
My son James sarcastically scolds me as a bad friend. I am.
It doesn’t even matter that I’d rather do just about anything else than be invited to their boring parties in their boring lives. It’s the principle.
And Fourth of July is just another excuse to show off for these assholes.