I know Cinquo de Mayo was only, oh, 6 weeks ago and it’s only 2 weeks til the Fourth of July, but could you please stop your kids from setting off fireworks in the alley? Pretty please?
A) To this hardened urban dweller, it sounds an awful lot like gunfire and I sit bolt upright in bed every time I hear a succession of pops.
B) I’ve seen your kids. None of them are over the age of eight. I’d like to see them keep their fingers and hands well into adulthood, and frankly, I don’t want to hear the shrieks of pain if something bad happens.
So unless you are all secret members of the fireworks guild and this is some family apprenticeship, there is no reason for them to be playing with explosives in the alley at 11:30 p.m. for four nights running!
I love fireworks! I love 'em I love 'em I love 'em!!!
Illinois is too anal about fireworks. You can only get them certain times of the year, and you can only get pussy fireworks like bottle rockets and sparklers. Feh.
And in my county, you need a permit just to buy them! :rolleyes:
So I go to Missouri, where they’re cheap and abundant and nobody cares. Bottle rockets: $1 per gross. 3" diameter mortars :eek: : $10 for a box of 10. Screaming Meanies: $1 for a dozen. Firecrakers: bundle of 20 or so for a quarter. All kinds of big, colorful, explosive shit: cheap, cheap, cheap!
Mrs. Rastahomie’s mother, who has lived in Missouri all her life, theorizes that those roadside fireworks stands throughout the state are fronts for drugs. Whatever. Give me $50 and I can fill my trunk with enough explosives to blow several hours’ time on a summer night.
Oh, and regarding the OP: yeah, you shouldn’t let kids do them unsupervised, and you shouldn’t let them off in populated areas. Fortunately, Mrs. Rastahomie has family members who live in the woods, where I can launch them without fearing The Man.
I’m with you rastahomie. The county I used to live in in Ohio outlawed fireworks. You had to drive a minimum of 45 minutes if you wanted any. But now I live in Florida where every corner and vacant lot has a tent up selling fireworks. I love it!!! And this year I have my own 1/2 acre yard to blow stuff up in. Its going to be one hell of a 4th.
God Bless the fireworks industry. [sub]Oh yeah, and America and democracy and all that stuff[/sub]
Checks the calendar Notices that it is the 20th of June and not the Fourth of July Confirms magdalene was talking about kids setting off fireworks all the freaking time, and not on the Fourth, so all y’all are kind of missing the point
I’m with you, magdalene. I think there have been fireworks going off in my neighborhood every night or so for the past four months. Scares the crap out of my dog. And pisses me off. No one’s begrudging you your Fourth fun, folks. But can you try to keep it confined to the holiday week, at least?
I agree with the OP. Inevitably, July 5, we’ll read at least 2-3 stories about some nitwit blowing his finger off from mishandling a firecracker, or some brat losing an eye because his retarded parents were too stupid to supervise their children properly, or worse yet, to realize that not only should adults not handle dangerous explosive devices . . neither should 8 year olds!
Even people that own fireworks factories get blown up now and then . . . if they have trouble handling these things, what makes you think YOU won’t???
Do us a favor- if you want to see fireworks, go to your local park July 4 . . and let the professionals light them for you
If you think THAT’S bad, try having a house in Beijing during the Chinese new year!
I have no idea what particular days in this seemingly endless festival call for explosives, so for me it was totally out of the blue every time they started going off around midnight.
This went on for weeks on end, a couple of nights a week all hell broke loose and then everything calmed down for a while… then…
Yeah, Missouri was known for it’s lax fireworks laws back when I lived in Oklahoma. I can remember my cousins coming back from Missouri with stuff that had been illegal for years.
So they still sell those little bottle rockets in Missouri? Those have been illegal for at least 17 or 18 years now in Texas and Oklahoma, and I sure miss them. You can buy the big rockets here, but you can’t really have fun with them since they cost a lot more and it feels wrong to ‘waste’ them during the daytime.
I feel your pain mags none stop from about June 1 to July 31, and you’re right, in an urban environment, that just plain sucks. When I lived downtown, it would startle us quite a bit (did nothing good for the cats, either), and the morons would be shooting off bottle rockets etc, I was always concerned that they’d land on my roof. Especially when it was dry out.
It doesn’t bother me as much out in the country where we are now cause they don’t seem to do it as much, I’m less likely to think gunfire (at night anyhow), and they’re really, really far away.
I’m not against fireworks - My Dad and I have launched many a bottle rocket off the back deck on the Fourth of July. They are illegal in Massachusetts, so Dad would get them on rare trips south of the Mason Dixon line and carefully hoard them from year to year.
Coldy - for the most part these folks seem like good parents. They spend a lot of time with their kids, kicking soccer balls in their postage-stamp sized back yard, reading to them on the back stoop, etc. I’m not going to call the cops on them, but I might head over there if it’s still going on tonight and ask them to stop.
Again, I’m not against fireworks, truth, justice, or the American Way. Launch them on the 4th. Launch them on Chinese New Year. In Czech Republic, launch them on St. Nicholas’ Day. Don’t launch them in my alley night after night after night for the hell of it. A lot of people who live in my neighborhood are quite elderly, and they CAN’T be enjoying this.
You guys buy your own fireworks and set them off whenever you please? I can’t speak for all of Canada (yet), but I have never even seen a firework. Somebody official somewhere gets them and sets them off on July 1st (Canada Day) and every night during the Stampede, but other than that, there are basically no fireworks in the average Canadian citizens’ life. Hmmm, that didn’t come out just right. Let me rephrase that; we don’t have access to fireworks at all (that I know of), and we don’t seem to be suffering from this lack. And most of our children have all of their fingers.
Oh, yes you are… Lemme tell ya, there is nothing at all cooler than seeing fireworks dangerously mishandled. Certain individuals/groups that I have recently become acquainted with are fond of setting off massive (ie: hundreds of bucks) worth of highly illegal fireworks, as a part of their ongoing quest for a Damn Good Time. There’s nothing cooler than watching someone in beercan armor riding a bicycle and whipping a roman candle about over their head.
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But, yeah, late-night fireworks can be annoying- I’ve lived with 'em for the better part of two years now. Sucks to be y’all, I guess.
