I Hate This Crap

For 8 days, the town of Mayberry, KS shudders, thunders and crackles with the sounds of faux war. The mini-rockets' red glare in the sky intend to remind us of a great battle that won us our independence. Itty bitty bombs bursting in air should move our hearts to patriotism. Four year-olds stand in the middle of the street lighting fireworks as big as their head. Grownups flash a sparse-toothed smile at the gas station as they show the finger they lost in last year's foolishness. I really, really don't like the 4th of July.

I don't like that The Dalton Gang two doors down wasn't born with the collective sense not to shoot the Roman Candles they're holding in the direction of the 80 year-old wood-shingled houses in the neighborhood. It irks me that our City Litres (more drink than leadership) allow this booming annoyance for 8 solid days. When we were kids (I got permission to use that phrase for my 42nd Birthday), we got one day, maybe....and if we weren't old enough to vote or be drafted, we were stuck with sparklers and those little snakes that smoked and oozed like some sort of underworld miscarriage.

Now, I watch grown people with a high school education let their pre-school children light full-on firecrackers and run away giggling. I think I was 30 before my dad let me light a firework in his presence. Granted, I was a little goonier than your average kid, so you can't blame the guy for being a little leery of what I might do with explosives and the family home. But still. Today, that man has his pre-teen grandchildren glued to him as he lights Really Big Fireworks. Some of those tip over. Mainly, they tip over because they were never meant to be lit on a tilted picnic table by drunk people. When they do tip over, something in the manufacturing of these maiming devices makes sure they point toward the greatest concentration of people in lawn chairs.

I have a kink in my back from trying to outrun a rogue explosive device, dodge a campfire, and maneuver around several older people too slow to get out of my way. This is fun? Drinking I understand. Drugs I understand. I understand Bungie Jumping, Mountain Climbing, Fire Walking and that stupid Glass-Walking stuff they do. But I will never understand fireworks.

Murphy, the Yorkie in whose home I abide, does neither pee nor poop for the 8 days that the noise is present. Last night, we engaged in a battle of wills for close to an hour over whether he would pee outside with minimal fireworks distraction. He won. The day before, I drove him to the town square, where it was relatively free of explosions, and he promptly deposited all of his bodily holdings on the lawn of the court house. "Serves them right," I thought. I'm fairly sure he was thinking the same thing.

Today will be the last day, presumably, that we endure Baghdad Syndrome. Tomorrow, he will defecate with abandon and whizz on everything that dares stand still in his presence. It's not that we're unpatriotic, the dog and I. We just like our patriotism quiet...the way we like children and people who watch Fox News.
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A box arrived from New York City last week with the discarded contents of an over-crowded Hell's Kitchen closet. My friend, David, was making room for the latest child in love with whom he is. His temporary madness has resulted in my permanent enrichment. Surprised am I that Gray Pants are so big among the gay set in NYC. And the number of shades between gray and tan fairly boggle the mind. A surprising number of GAP items were in the box. I knew that Kansas gay folks shopped at The Gap because they tend to employ friendly fat girls who make good ha...err...friends. I had no idea it was apparently genetic and a habit on the coast, as well.

Valentino, Barney's, one lovely mint-green pullover (no tag, obviously synthetic, but still...), Banana Republic, Bergdorf Goodman (made in Italy), Giorgio Freakin' Armani, Calvin Klein, Jhane Barnes. This kid has been good for my closet. But every cloud, we learn on this journey, has its ugly lining. In the box, toward the bottom, was another human being's underwear and Speedo swimsuit.

Now, I am not averse to taking a bite off of someone's plate. And God knows, back in the years when inclination and opportunity met in a moment of Kismet, I have journeyed into other folks' underpants. But I have always been skeeved by the notion of actually putting them on. I was never an underwear snatcher...even at my lowest point. I eschewed the offering of underpants at garage sales, yard sales, barn sales, auctions and the like. I think that's because I was raised with Jesus.

Heathens...they'll steal your underpants. But nobody who's ever been to Sunday School will snatch your drawers...or want them. I paid $30 (a paltry sum for the treasures I was sent) to have them shipped here. It would cost me a third of that to have the underpants sent home, where they belong. They are, to a piece, handsome and probably far more pricey than my tight fist would have sprung for. I held them to my face, piece-by-piece, to feel what the natural fibers we grow 'round these parts become when they're made into clothing for the rich folks.

I stopped rubbing his clothes on my face when I spied the underpants. From then on, I stood back a step with a can of Lysol and applauded politely. I know people, though. I know people who would put on somebody else's underwear before the other person was completely out of them. So they'll go to good use. Somebody in this great Prairie Paradise will be walking around oblivious to the fact that they are undergirded by cloth that once supported a Manhattan demi-socialite who has sipped champagne with some of the better of the unknown people in society.

We are interesting, as a nation, since our independence was gained in 1776. Two hundred and thirty years later we hand explosives and a cigarette lighter to children who have been banned from touching the knobs on the stove, t.v. or stereo. And we ship our underpants to other people. I would have thought we might be more evolved by now. It must be the Republican influence: Blow something up, send your underpants overseas. I bet that's in their platform somewhere.

I Hate This Crap.