I'm not saying I hate this holiday, but...

Could we cool it? With the fireworks I mean? I ask because for the last, I don't know, four weeks? Yeah, about four weeks, people have been setting off fireworks in my neighborhood.

I think they think it looks like this,

but really it's more like this, and often followed by a trip
to the emergency room to sew some thumbs back on.

Above: mid-October for some
unfathomable reason.

You know how stores-remember those? How stores start in with the Thanksgiving stuff on October 30th? Like, Halloween's not even cold yet and already with the Thanksgiving decorations, and then not long after we're on to the Christmas nonsense. This is like that except instead of insipid holiday music and flocked wreathes, this is amateurs setting off explosives. I assume they're amateurs, unless by some statistical quirk I happen to live in on a street that's like, forty percent pyrotechnic effects specialists. Speaking of...

Pyrotechnician is a job, like an actual job that in most states requires that someone be trained and licensed. It's not something you can just-huh? No, of course Florida isn't one of those states. Of course it isn't.

Pictured: a team of licensed, professional
pyrotechnicians carefully setting up a fireworks display.
Not pictured: a beer can in anybody's hand. Not one.

Above: Federal agents seizing explo-
oh, wait, that's just some randos
shopping for bombs. My mistake. 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is how come it's ok to just set off goddamn bombs in your front yard? I mean, that is weird right? Like objectively speaking, the availability and cultural acceptance of actual explosives for celebratory purposes is insane, right? Especially in a country where buying fertilizer can land you on a watch list. Yet some of us just stroll into a store or in some cases drive across state lines and pick up explosives which they then set off for the hell of it, often while they and their families are standing right next to them. Oh, and also they've had a few. I mean, it's a picnic.

"Hit the fucking deck!"

-Your dog, towards

whom I'm indifferent

Also, as we've discussed, I don't care about your dog. It's not personal, I just probably have never met your dog and even if I have, I'm just not a dog person. What? Don't look at me like that, I'm going somewhere with this. Like I was saying, I don't care about your dog, but I also don't want it to have to suffer through a cacophony of loud booms. They don't know what fireworks are, they just know that for four weeks out of the year are absolutely terrifying. And not for nothing, but fireworks can freak out humans as well.

Look, I don't hate America or anything. I'm pretty sick of a certain red-be-hatted demographic, but I don't hate America and I don't want to ruin people's good time. But if we have to demonstrate how patriotic we are by recklessly detonating caches of store-bought bombs, could we at least all agree to limit the random loud explosion noises at all hours to the actual Fourth of July holiday and not this vaguely defined Fourth of July season?

Because seriously, I can really only handle a single say of this.