A July 4th story...........

Yes, today is the day when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, thereby freeing all Americans to have the right to go outside of their home once a year and blow their fingers off. Bearing that in mind, I thought I'd relay a fine fireworks story of my own. My parents should prepare themselves now for the fact that this is another story they're hearing for the first time. Thank God for blogs and my own sharp recollection of past events.

As is often the case, I was a young boy who liked fireworks. Anything that would blow up was extremely cool. There's a mindless rush in seeing something explode, especially when you're a child. It's the one time of the year where you get to do things that are much more dangerous than any other day of the year.

I had a neighbor named Kurt who enjoyed fireworks probably more than I did. Just like any other July 4th, we were outside shooting off fireworks together. We had the usual Black Cat firecrackers and we were shooting them off one by one to pass the time. Being the bright kids we were, we were lighting the firecrackers while holding them in our hand. We'd let the fuse burn for a second with the intention to make sure that the firecracker blew up while still airborne. Any young boy will point out that if the firecracker blew up after it hit the ground, it was a failure of monumental proportions.

Every once in awhile, you'd get a quick fuse that you'd have to deal with in a hurry. You could either drop it where you were and run away or you could try to hurry a throw and get rid of it. Often, they'd blow up just after they left your hand, instigating nervous laughter from everyone knowing that you just escaped removal of one of your fingers via explosives.

On this particular day, I had a quick fuse that I had to deal with. I saw it was going quick, so I pulled back my hand to throw it. Only one problem.......it exploded while I was holding it. My right ear started ringing pretty good. I quickly stuck out my hand in front of me. 1.....2.....3.....4.....5 gunpowder-blackened fingers. Whew.

My fingers were stinging like nobody's business from the flash-burn on my thumb and pointer fingers. I knew I needed to run some water on my fingers to cool them down a bit. Being the bright child I was, I knew I'd get an earful if I went inside my own house to deal with the damage. Going into Kurt's house would have only been worse as I would have got an earful from Kurt's mom and then my mom would have been notified and I would have got an earful from her as well.

So I did the only thing I could do at that point........I stuck my hand in our above-ground pool in the backyard. It wasn't the best alternative, but it felt awfully good. I left my hand in there for 30 minutes or so and that helped quite a bit. Over the next few days, I just dealt with the pain as best as I could because I didn't want anyone finding out what I had done. Thankfully, everything healed up quite nicely and all fingers were intact.

Of course the moral of this story is 'If you nearly blow off your hand doing something stupid, take all measures possible to make sure your parents don't find out just how dumb you are'.

Have a good 4th and keep the fireworks on the ground when lighting them.