Did y’all have a good independence weekend?
I did.
I’ve been practicing drinking. It used to be that two drinks would make me a stumbling sleepy person, knees trembling and tongue slurring all my words. But now I can make it to five drinks and, as long as I’m careful, laugh at all the dumb things without looking like I’m about to fall down. I’ve been practicing every weekend since my kids went with their dad. I’m working my way up, building my tolerance.
Just kidding.
Friday night I went with a bunch of people to shoot fireworks on the edge of town. Some of the boys (men in their twenties) started aiming the little rockets at each other. Sometimes the rockets hurtled towards us civilians and caused us to step into mud puddles during our flights to safety.
“Damn it!” we yelled. “Y’all quit!” The cops came and some of us ran like the wind, ready to drive away and leave comrades behind. (How come some of us reacted so quickly like that to a police car, hmm?) But the fireworks weren’t illegal. The sheriff got on his loudspeaker and said, “Some of y’all shootin’ fireworks lower to the ground need to get back. Y’all need to get back from the intersection. That last one hit my car.”
What a nice neighborhood, where the cops are so friendly. But, still — it was wartime. The screaming, the whistling of the bombs, and the smoke all got to me and I had to make out with a compatriot on the sidelines, safe in the backseat of someone’s SUV. Until we were caught and reprimanded for not respecting the patriotic activities. Sheepishly, we rejoined the throng and cheered at the carnage.
Then we all drove back to the BBQ site, telling tales of good times and egg-throwing times of old.
On the way back, we saw young people lining up sports cars at a shopping-center parking lot for a midnight race. I wanted to stay and watch, but our brave veterans needed to be rationed more hamburgers and apple pie. So we hurried on back, then had more fun until it was time to go home and finally sleep, from five a.m. to the afternoon.
