The Fourth of July brings the nuisance of fireworks

After sitting in my makeshift nuclear winter hideaway for a couple of minutes, a cursory glance at my watch reminded me that it wasn't the apocalypse that I had to fear, but something far more heinous: The Fourth of July. I re-emerged onto the street to find myself surrounded by my mischievous neighbors, all huddled over various explosives.

Now, this isn't meant to be an indictment of Independence Day or patriotism or Old Glory or any of that stuff. Ever since the first time I saw fireworks at the age of 3, I have felt a great deal of contempt for them.

Jack Schillaci Slam It to the Left

At this young age, my parents took me down to Pier Marquette Park to watch the City of Muskegon (my hometown) launch several thousand dollars worth of explosives over the water of Lake Michigan. After about two minutes, I no longer found them exciting. Five minutes after that, I was sitting in my parents' Gremlin repeating over and over to anyone who happened to walk by, "All done, fowsies!" (You see, I thought the fireworks looked like flowers, and my slightly impeded speech produced the word "fowsie" in lieu of "flower.")

And so began my lifelong disdain for fireworks. It's not so much that I hate them outright, it's just that I think they make far too much noise considering how dull and boring they are to watch. They just sort of fly up into the air, make an incredibly disproportionate amount of noise for their size, and blow up into a hundred little points of light that do absolutely nothing to entertain.

And those are the big, cool ones. The smaller ones that you buy at a 7-11 or gas station are a million times more boring. They all manage to say something totally idiotic on the warning label like, "Emits showers of sparks" or "Shoots flaming balls." Well, duh! You stick 'em on the ground, throw a match at them, and if you're lucky, the thing will shoot off sparks for about 30 seconds, after which time you are treated to the smell of sulfur and the duty of disposing of the disgusting, burnt-out cylinder that remains.

And then there are sparklers, those little flaming sticks adults hand to children in order to keep them entertained on a long, hot July Fourth evening. What better way to keep a kid happy than to hand him or her something that is "emitting showers of sparks" about six inches from their hand?

I really have to ask the die-hard fireworks fan what exactly it is that is so damned entertaining. I admit that initially, a big fireworks show can be amusing, but in the same way that staring into a flashing light or watching paint dry will bore you and give you a headache, the multi-colored spectacle quickly grows old.

Add to this the traffic, the summer heat that you have to face (although I suppose that didn't apply this year), and the beer-guzzling idiot whose kids are launching bottle rockets that you always end up parking next to, and you've got a bad situation that at best is a nuisance.

- Jack Schillaci really doesn't understand the difference between watching fireworks and watching static snow on the television for hours. Clue him in by e-mailing him at jschilla@umich.edu. He'll be sitting in his flame-retardant clothes waiting for your message.

07-06-98