The 4th is here, and that means hours of the dogs barking their heads off every few minutes. I’m tempted to rig up an extremely loud PA system and blare their barking all over the neighborhood, maybe ruin the “fun time” these bozos are having…
I doubt they’d even notice. I loathe home fireworks, especially within city limits. They’re illegal here, but there are too many idiots for the police to enforce the law. I wish I had a megaphone so I could pretend to be the cops–not that that would stop 'em.
And you can’t tell me they’re celebrating the Fourth. Independence Day means nothing to them, and half probably couldn’t say who we were declaring independence from. They just like to make things go boom.
Yep. Last year the idiots started a fire on the hillside.
I only hate them because they’re pathetic and uninteresting. If I had the mixed fortune of neighbors who blow $10,000-$50,000 on 4th of July fireworks — the real stuff, the stuff that goes FOOOOM! as it shoots out of the tube and gasplammms in the air 190 feet up and 60 yards side to side and visible for 8 miles — I would not hate it, I’d go out and jump up and down with glee watching it. (And yes, I know of two nearby communities where the crazy private citizens dump that much money on neighborhood fireworks every year, Bayville NY on the north shore and Farmingdale in mid-island; and I go there to watch them instead of going to commercial official fireworks events when possible).
I did say “mixed”. They’re amateurs playing with fire. They drink as they go. They don’t have the fire department conveniently on standby in case something goes wrong. I’ve never seen anything go wrong in either locale but it certainly could. I’m happy to drive to some other community where this happens and watch it instead of it being a recurrent event in our immediate neighborhood. If you see what I mean.
But those are fireworks worth watching, and I don’t get the attraction for bottle rockets and things that fly up like angry mosquitos and go fizzzzzz-pop and cherry bombs and strings of bang bangs and so on and so forth.
Oh and also I don’t have dogs. I think I’d hate them if I were a dog owner, for sure. Poor puppies.
When used responsibly I really couldn’t care about fireworks. When people start using them like toys and firing them too low is when I start to hate them.
Here’s “home fireworks” in Bayville, illegal uncondoned on the beach:
They’re dangerous, I shouldn’t approve, but damn, they put on a show a zillion times better than the pros.
They maintain the level of pyrotechnics that in pro shows you see as the Big Conclusion except they do that for hour after hour… usually one neighbor trying to outdo the other and upping the ante from year to year.
I’m hating them more every minute because they’re keeping me awake. I wouldn’t mind so much if there were an hour or so of fireworks and that was it, but most years, it’s sporadic until 3 or 4 a.m…
yeah the ones neighbors either get from the "little"asian communities or bring in from Mexico or further south are better than a lot of the home stuff …every year there’s 30 stands selling the exact same stuff lined up along the highway
DH had to call out from work because he got ZERO sleep. They’re blasting stuff that’s setting off car alarms!
I’d enjoy them a lot more if I didn’t have to be at work on July 5th at 5 am.
Also, my birds spent most of last night freaking out again. Although for them the problem is more the flashing light show than the noise. I can close the blinds, but the noise still bothers me and the loudest bangs keep waking up the parrots and sending them into fits.
My Dad [ww2, korea, retired in 69] would take the older style 1970s headphones and sit in the basement with something [knowing him, probably jazz or big band] and wait it out. Back then it was only 1 day - the same day we had the town 4th parade.
Currently they freaking started thursday and ended last night.
It makes my back crawl - I lived in a slum area where the banging sounds meant gunfire. I am scared that a round is going to come through my wall and take me out.
And I freaking broke a tooth this morning. So I am really grumpy.
I was pleasantly surprised the last two nights.
Saturday night the jackass neighbors across the way were shooting off fireworks that seemed like low-elevation Roman candles, only with an extremely loud BOOM! at their conclusion, enough to put Pluto the spaniel on alert though he is typically calm about lower-level ordnance. The following nights though, they apparently stayed indoors so there was just the mid and far distance stuff.
Of course, lots of people don’t exhaust their stash for quite awhile after the 4th, and county regulations allow fireworks to be shot off every day of the year. Just not past 11 p.m. because we’re civilized, though I doubt that rule is rigorously enforced.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights I went through 10 Trazadone tablets for our dog Loki. I only got a few hours of sleep each night because even with the Trazadone I still had to talk her down repeatedly each night.
I’d accept that quietly, but July 4 is just one firework extravaganza. People will do smaller “displays” for everything that happens, including Uncle Ted visiting from Boise.
I was just going to say, we gave our dog Victor Trazadone yesterday and it worked a treat! He’s usually incredibly anxious about thunder and fireworks, but last night he was one stoned American dog.
Fortunately, our closest neighbors didn’t set off any fireworks, but we could hear celebrations from a nearby town.
To me, fireworks of any sort are overrated. I have zero interest in watching even the best pro displays.
And the neighborhood explosions, likely produced and directed by a drunken group of adolescent boymen, can go straight to hades.
mmm
Am I the only one who hates home fireworks?
No, I’m pretty sure our cats agree with you.
Fireworks always make me think about the terror Jesse went through. He’s a guy I know who lost 1 1/2 fingers to a homemade firework when he was 13.
Jesse’s parents had divorced and he was with his dad for the holiday weekend. His dad took him to a party in Erie, PA. It was an adult party and at some point Jesse had a firework go off in his hand.
His dad was afraid of getting in trouble, so he wrapped his son’s hand in a towel and drove several hours to Pittsburgh, where he knew someone he thought could help him get his son medical attention without him being involved. They made up a story and had Jesse memorize it.
When I hear fireworks I think about what the kid went through that night.
I enjoy them but agree they really need to be condensed to a single time period once a year. If they just went nuts every Fourth of July night from dusk till midnight and be done with it I’d be fine.
But I don’t need an entire pre and post week of nightly explosions and don’t really care to be awoken at 2a.m. from the drunks who found a few extra in the pick-up bed.
No, you’re not the only one. We’ve had threads complaining about them before. Here, for example, is a long Pit thread from last year:
Personally, I don’t mind them, as long as they’re just one night or even just one long weekend; but I understand those who do.
Here, the first one was the weekend of the 25th. Pretty sure it was at some birthday party in the park next door.