WHY DO YOU HATE THE FOURTH OF JULY?
I mean, let’s get this out of the way— I’m deeply ashamed to be an American right now. I used to be a weirdly patriotic person. Probably because I had a comfortable childhood, followed by a carefree, pre-Columbine adolescence, culminating in the attainment of my own great big American Dream before I turned 30. What a country! (You can count on me to reference Yakov Smirnoff in 2025; I’ll never change.) Anyway, as the favored child of an abusive parent, you can develop blinders out of guilt, selfishness, or both. The “land of opportunity” delivered for me, big time, so I believed in it. I accepted it as my destiny, just like those genocidal men in their wooden ships. I was born on Flag Day, just like Donald Trump.
I’m not a flag-waver anymore; I won’t rep a budding dictatorship that abets violence, destroys families and punishes truth-tellers. But here’s the thing— I disliked the Fourth of July even when I loved my country. I’ve dreaded the day since I was a little kid, when my mom would lay out a red tank top with blue star-spangled shorts for me to wear to the cookout. There would be strawberry pretzel “salad” and Plumpers hot dogs, and delicious fried chicken delivered in batches by Bobby’s great-grandma, and all the adults would get drunk which led to an unwitting transfer of power to the kids (us!). But I still begged to stay home because…
I HATE FIREWORKS. You already know this! But I hate them! I hate them so fucking much. I know this is a hard pivot from the political content I teased up front, but dudes, I don’t understand how so many of you enjoy painfully loud explosions accompanied by bright, scary lights (the ones that flash first and then go boom are the bane of my existence). And it’s not just the officially sanctioned displays that I hate— those are at least scheduled so I know when to hunker down. When I was a kid, my neighbors and cousins and brother would cross the border to Indiana to buy boxes of cherry bombs, Roman candles, M80s (egregious), Black Cats that came in a seemingly never-ending roll, and those fucking willy-nilly bottle rockets, one of which hit me in the bare stomach one year while it was still smoldering. I’m getting anxious simply writing about it and I just took my Buspar. This holiday is a crucible for me and many dogs, and I’m (sincerely) glad the rest of you get to enjoy and romanticize these explosions like it’s totally normal for something to be that loud, but I am scared.
Anyway. It’s cool that millions of Americans get a much-deserved day off from work, especially on a summer Friday, yay, but I also know someone is going to blow off their hand tonight and it’s going to look like a hot geyser of strawberry pretzel salad, and then they’ll wake up hand-less tomorrow and forever. I also don’t know what we’re celebrating right now. Independence from the British, I guess, but does the average “patriot” know shit about the American Revolution these days? Any takeaway there?
I’ll have my fingers in my ears until Monday, good night!
Same. Fireworks are the worst.