Burn Baby Burn

The Fourth of July used to be my favorite holiday as a kid. In the days leading up to it, I'd make my rounds on the telephone begging each family member for money to buy fireworks. Completely self-assure, I'd try to sweeten the deal with, "If you get me fireworks, you don't have to give me birthday money next week." Every year I got a Moonshot Rocket and starting around age eight or nine, I started lighting them by myself.

*Note to self: There may be a correlation between the increased life insurance policy and the new-found freedom to light my own pyrotechnics.

I remember the shittiest "firework" was a tie between those poppers that made noise when you threw them on the ground and those black "snakes" that were little round tablets that you lit and they grew into this ash colored tube that charred your sidewalk. We were always coming up with ways to make the poppers exciting so we'd throw them at each other and pretend they were bullets or (the dumb kids) would bite them. I remember opening them up and trying to mix a bunch together hoping that they'd make a mini bomb or something.

I had a knack for fixing things like tvs and radios, so naturally I tried to carry that over to fixing the duds in the fireworks boxes. I clearly remember taking five or ten  fountains apart and pouring the black powder into mailing tubes and tying a bunch of fuses together. They would never ignite and I remember being so disappointed.

*Note to self: God really likes you.

The stupidest thing I did was trying to mimic something I saw in a movie. I snuck in the house, pretending to be thirsty, and poured rubbing alcohol into a cup and went back outside. My plan was to write my name on the sidewalk in alcohol and then use a sparkler to light it.

I was about seven or eight at the time so the stupidity of this next part is almost excusable. Rather than pour the alcohol on the ground first and then light the sparkler, my dumb ass lit the sparkler and then picked up the cup. A random spark ignited the cup in my hand and, panicking, I dropped the cup which basically caused a ring of fire to explode in all directions at my feet. Unfortunately, my feet happened to be underneath me when this happened so the liquid fire fell onto my shoes and socks.

*I invented the MC Hammer typewriter dance that day.

I danced around the yard double-time trying to put the fire on my shoes out while trying not to make any noise to alert my grandmother and ensure an ass-whooping. Although my shoes were melted in several places, the fire didn't burn my feet or legs, and my grandmother bought my story about why there were patches in the grass. (I told her that a fountain tipped over and burned the yard as it spun in a circle.)

That was one of my last times playing with fire...