The Fourth of July has to be my least favorite holiday.
Crowds and explosions put me into a full blown panic.
Last night, while driving slowly through a congested neighborhood looking for a good parking spot to watch fireworks, I was reminded of how badly I handled fireworks as a child.
Every year, I would freak the fuck out.
Because of the crowded streets, I was on the verge of freaking out last night. I couldn't stop imagining all of those cars and people suddenly panicking because of a bomb, or maybe aliens or zombies and a wave of humanity and metal crashing over the hood of our car as everyone tried to flee like lemmings.
Needless to say we decided to watch the fireworks at a nice pedestrian bridge several miles away.
Fireworks as a child. Every year I was certain that this would be the one. The year I could actually sit through an entire Fireworks event.
Every year had me bolting for the nearest parking lot to hide under a car.
We would go to this fair around the Fourth. They had games and music. Then fireworks.
My parents would want to go home before, but I always insisted..promised.. that this time I wouldn't freak out.
Memories of running from explosions while a band plays a cover of "Another One Bites The Dust."
I think the music, specifically that number, came on either before or after the fireworks display, but in my memory I flee, terrified, with that song playing.
I recall one year, sitting on a causeway watching them from miles away, still terrified, crouching behind the concrete side of the bridge, barely peeping over.
I recall another year going to see fireworks with my friends at a park just yards away from the barge where they set them off.
My friend's mother had to sit with me, cowering under a blanket in a lawn chair, talking me through the whole thing. Maybe she heard that I ran for the parking lot. Maybe my parents warned her.
I still don't like them although I can bear them. In this city, around the fourth, it sounds like a war zone. Pick a war zone, any war zone. We put the air condition in around the fourth just to drown out the sound.
You can count on me and every dog in the country freaking the fuck out on the Fourth of July.
Not to mention, people get drunk and do dumb things. Someone left a corn studded diarrhea at the top of my driveway a few years back around the fourth. No, it was not a dog, dogs don't wipe their ass and leave the paper.
And to end my hated holiday rant. Today is the 24th anniversary of Concert Ed puking in my bed.
Here is that story if you want to go back for a read:
http://nicrophorus.blogspot.com/2013/07/concert-ed.html
Ok I don't know how to wrap this up. My foot hurts, I'm getting tired and I just want to wrap this up before the Fourth Of July is officially over.
So if you get a moment, raise a glass, plastic cup or can to Concert Ed. If you can, listen to The Boxer. It was Ed's favorite and he played a mean air cymbal to that song.
If you really felt the urge, vomit in a stranger's bed, blame it on getting bad water instead of the booze and 15 aspirin! that would be really getting into the spirit!
Happy 4th!!
