Independence Day is quickly approaching, which means many friends and families are purchasing fireworks to set off in celebration. Here are some tips for preventing painful fireworks-related injuries:
- Most serious injuries happen on July 4th, so set off your explosives on the day before or the day after.
- Be sure to set off at least one firework as a tribute to Vulcan, ancient Roman god of fire, or face his wrath.
- If a firework fails to ignite, there may be something wrong with it. To figure out the problem, examine the firework up close and watch carefully while you try reigniting it.
- Anyone about to set off a “black snake” should prepare for a major disappointment.
- Remember that fireworks can’t hurt you when you’re drunk. Nothing can.
- The most effective treatment for burns is to go around showing people the burn and saying, “Look, I burned myself. Fuckin’ hurts.”
- Glow sticks are great alternatives to sparklers for children whose parents are no fucking fun.
- It’s safest to be as far as possible from the site of ignition. Instead of lighting the firework directly, set it off via a trail of gunpowder that’s at least 500 feet long.
- When buying fireworks, remember: The bigger the firework, the higher it will fly, and the less likely it will be to hurt you.
- Children should only use fireworks under the strict supervision of an adult or a slightly older cousin.
- Do not invite stupid people to your fireworks display.
The neighborhood morons are out all over the place with their damn fireworks. I hate them. They make the animals miserable, with their super-sensitive hearing. By 7 pm, this nabe will sound like a war zone, and will throughout the night, for the whole weekend, as these little cretins set off the entire inventory of every fireworks stand between here and Indianapolis.
So much for Chicago restrictions on fireworks. Hope the little buggers blow their effing fingers off.
I’m doing a 4th of July Pictorial Essay. Should be done late today.
Good advice. Thanx for it.
I’m old school. Fireworks are for weaklings. Real patriots have Firecrackers. The ‘good stuff’ , oddly enough, is generally only found in those bastions of Americanism your city’s Chinatown. Here young Chinese men abandon their public image as Cal Tech and MIT engineering and science prodigies and loiter on street corners like some of our less model minorities ready to sell you small explosive devices.
Silver salutes, cherry bombs and those noisy but popular strings of ‘penny firecrackers’ can be had. You may have to look long and hard though for the King of them all, the M-80 artillery simulator but they are worth the effort if you can get your hands on some. Nothing else shows true patriotism like the thunderous reverberation of an M-80 going off.
“So much for Chicago restrictions on fireworks. Hope the little buggers blow their effing fingers off.”
—-Chicago999444
Don’t get me started about my fireworks hijinks when I was a kid. Damn, that was fun. Cherry bombs, bulldogs, you name it. You’ll probably explode before I’m finished.
Your pal,
Three-fingered SSS
SSS, there are about 300 of the childhood you living in a 3 block radius of this apartment. And every goddam one of them is going to be setting off entire packs of firecrackers, plus cherry bombs and every other explosive device they can get their dirty little mitts on. In the middle of the street and on the sidewalks and in the alleys. It will not abate for a single minute until July 6 AM and maybe not even then. My cat and I will be in a closet. The neighborhood dogs will be howling in pain.
Fucking little scuzzwads.
I know it’s been posted before, but that fireworks battle they have in Greece every Easter looks fuckin’ AWESOME!!!!
The Greeks are allowed to make these rockets on their own…. screw buying them from some cheezy vendor…
I remember reading somewhere where they started this annual rocket war over 100 years ago… after the authorities took away their cannons..
Back when I was married (you’ll soon understand the significance of the use of past tense), I got into a firebomb war with my neighbor. This wasn’t an “across the fence tossing little wussy firecrackers” deal, this was in a two family house where I lived on the first floor and my opponent was on the second.
It began quite innocently enough. My upstairs neighbor was hurling cherry bombs out in the street when one of them was caught by a breeze and flew onto my porch, where I was grilling and throwing out strings of 2″ crackers.
I responded with two strings of 2″ crackers thrown up and over his porch wall. He proceeded to drop cherry bombs and M-80’s down which were timed to go off in midair right in front of my set up.
Then it got intense, with prodigious use of roman candles, M-80’s, 3″ and above crackers, and other stuff until our wives screamed ” Will you two asshole knock it off? What are you, 5 years old? For God’s sake, are you trying to burn the house down?”
Women=Fun Police
Famous last words, “Hey, watch this”!
Lysander, exactly why I told Bea, you need extra wives like you need extra holes in your head.
Thanks for the funny post, Lysander. I’m glad I don’t live on your street. You make me downright grateful for the firestorm to come on my street tonight- at least they’re not throwing the things at each other. Yet.
There was a time about 5 years ago, in geezer terms – last week, when the fireworks went on for 3 or 4 nights. They started off tentatively enough until the 4th when the fireworks crews cast worries aside and went full throttle on the bombs and roman candles. Sheriff choppers flew overhead, scanning the valley floor looking for youthful lawbreakers. On the other side of the valley, the bombs burst in the air with gusto. By morning it was quiet and we civilians who did not have a hangover woke up bright and early at noon to see our flag still there.
Chicago
I’m a small town boy, born and bred. Most of the stuff I was involved in were little knots of boys assembled in a field. We brought our small arsenals of fireworks and tried different shit with it, such as throwing a cherry bomb in a bucket of water or a nearby pond.
We did this stuff outside of town. Nobody cared, not the farmer who owned the field, not even the township cops. Boys love things that go boom. Always have.
insanity is still legal in Long Beach Wa.
Z-man, exactly. That was AV back then.
The guy at Bowlins in Akela Flats said it’s not illegal to transport their fireworks across state lines.
Chicago999444 said:
“SSS, there are about 300 of the childhood you living in a 3 block radius of this apartment. And every goddam one of them is going to be setting off entire packs of firecrackers, plus cherry bombs and every other explosive device they can get their dirty little mitts on.”
If it helps you can take comfort in the fact that your tax dollars paid for the little welfare urchins to have their fun.
Does anyone remember the fireworks that looked like a medium sized firecracker with wings attached? Those things would fly at warp speed and buzz people in the head and girls would scream and run around crazy.
buzz bomb? big buzz killer?
Famous last words are: “Hold my beer and watch this!”
Lots of Darwin Awards are being handed out after this year’s 4th of July celebrations, though somehow not in my neighborhood. Amazing. An posthumous award goes to the genius in Maine who died after he launched something from the top of his head.
Oh my Chicago, get off my lawn! are you shaking a cane at them?
Even before Michigan decriminalized fireworks (and fun, and capitalism that creates jobs), the days leading up to, and usually after too, are filled with booms and whistles and flashing lights here and there.
My 100 pound lab was scared to death, she started trembling and shaking in late June and usually didn’t stop until August. I found calming chews, dog pheromones, a thundershirt, extra exercise and a whole lot of being told to lay down helped substantially.
But my heart SOARS when I hear them. One of the last bastions where do-gooders have not been able to totally destroy it.
By over-protecting our precious little children, we are creating a nation of wimps that will not have the good sense to save themselves. Look around, already starting.
I didn’t buy any of my loud, fire based, toys yet. But I’m not heading to the middle of nowhere until mid-July and by then the fireworks are clearanced to beat the band. I’ll get twice the number, or more, than the fools that celebrated our propagandized patriotic day.
Peace Chicago. Buy kitty some calming chews, I’m sure it will help immensely.