I like fireworks.  I really do.  One of my fondest childhood memories is that of running through the woods at night playing “war” with BB guns and bottle rockets. I wasn’t as over the top as these guys below, but… well… dangerous or not, shooting fireworks at people is fun. Yes, I know. Bad. I’m not sure how I’ve lived as long as I have… but. Fun. Try it.

If you get bored… skip ahead to about the 4.20 mark.  Hope you like KISS.

It’s getting to be that time of year where blowing things up is marginally permissible.  In the state in which I live, Virginia (not paranoia), fireworks are legal as long as they don’t leave the ground or explode.  That pretty much eliminates all the fireworks worth having.  You’re stuck with fountains, sparklers, smoke bombs, and snakes.  Each of those has its own “fun” factor to it, but when you light a firework most people really want to see something fly around and then explode and lighting a fountain and throwing it doesn’t make up for the lack of selfpropelled goodness of a mortar shell or bottle rocket.  When I was younger, I would load up on fireworks during family trips to Myrtle Beach, SC.  I had a limited budget so I was stuck purchasing mainly firecrackers, jumping jacks and bottle rockets.  Not that those aren’t fun.  They were just small scale.

As an adult with a job, I was able to increase my firepower.

Fortunately for me, a mere 2.5 hour drive away is the state of Pennsylvania, where one can buy all the fun fireworks one can imagine.  (As long as you’re not a citizen of Pennsylvania.  Due to weird legal loophole you can sell fireworks in PA only to people who don’t live there.)  Phantom Fireworks has a store about the size of most grocery stores packed to the gills with boom sticks and whistley flying bits.  Not to mention my favorites, the 500 gram mortars. (500 grams is the largest amount of explosive material in a single device that you can sell to someone in the US without the ATF getting involved.  Of course, tape and extension fuses can make #500 turn into #1000-#1500 pretty easily.  Feel free to ask anyone who witnessed the white phosphorous shell I made that exploded at 30 feet off the ground instead of 300 at last years 4th of July party.  Everyone on the deck suffered temporary blindness.  Relax, I said temporary.)

So this year’s going to be a bit more low-key for the 4th.  No mega large booms in the yard.  I’ve got a few special mortar shells and boom sticks that I’ve saved from previous extravaganzas for certain special occassions (like tossing at punters on I-66).  Come to think of it… what a fun evening commute that would be.

So… I forgot the point of all of this.

Oh yeah.  Fireworks are fun and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  I encourage everyone to go out and either blow something up yourselves or watch a pro do it.  (I bet my blog just made the Terrorist Watch List again.)  Try to stay away from the Washington DC mall area if you go see them though.  It’s hot, it’s gross, and it’s gross.  It’s also crowded and that’s no fun.  Better to set off some sparklers and watch cousin Bubba blow off his toe than to sit on the Metro with 4 million sweaty grossniks.  Seriously it is.  If you live in a state that allows cool fireworks, all the more reason to do it yourself.  Let your kids play too.  Don’t be that adult who won’t let kids play because they’re too busy entertaining their own inner child.  Let the kid light the fuse.  They’ll run away before it blows up… nothing to worry about.  And if they don’t run… the burning phosphorous wake up call will be good for them.  What’s the worst that could happen?

Also, I’m legally banned from having custody of children under the age of 47 in most of the eastern United States.

Jerks.

In the Summer, I am of the Darkest Bloom,
In the Autumn, I smell of sweet Perfume.
In the Spring, I gather around the Room. 
In the Winter, I spell impending Doom.

Man’s Reach can’t catch me as Time passes By.
It takes more Than the wind to make me Fly.

Can you solve this riddle?

Anyway, listen.  So I was watching one of the greatest cinematic epic tales ever to be recorded in the annals (2 n’s ok, 1 n-gross) of history.  Of course I mean Kindergarten Cop.  Arnold’s finest work opposite some rug monsters that yielded such wonderful gems as “It’s not a tumor”, “How are you?”, “Yeah”, “Stop it!”, and “Who is your daddy and what does he do?”.  Through tears of giggliness, I noticed in one of the classroom scenes (I believe it was the one during the firedrill when the kid is happily dancing on the table yelling “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!”) that there was one of those old turny-crank handle versions of a pencil sharpener nailed to the wall by the door.  Boy did that bring back memories of wasting time as a very small Monty.

Do they even use those anymore?  The last time I remember being exposed to one of those things was in the 8th grade… and that was about 24 years ago.  If they’ve been replaced by frickin’ lasers or micro shave bots, that’s a real loss to the time wasting kid of today.  Maybe that’s why gang violence is on the rise… no more access to a turny-crank pencil sharpener, fine… got my gat and I’m going to bust a cap in the whitie.  I spent time on the streets.

When I was small and bored, I’d intentionally break off the point of my pencil so as to have an excuse to go over to the door and use the sharpener.  I’d break my pencil roughly every 20 minutes.  I wrote hard, man.  So, firstly… the pencil sharpener was by the door… so I could look out into the hallway and see if there was anyone on their way to lunch or the nurse or anywhere.  Sometimes across the hall there’d be a person doing the same thing and we’d nod to each other… knowing we were stealing time from the man.  About that time, “the man” would shout in my direction to hurry up.  The first thing you had to do on those old cranky-turny things was adjust the size ring.  It was a metal disk with a dozen holes punched in it to correspond to the various pencil sizes in use.  I say “in use” loosely.  I only ever saw one size being used… that being pencil sized, but apparently this thing could take anything from a tooth pick to a telephone poll.  Once I tried it on the largest size to see if I could sharpen 2 or 3 at a time.  I did.  Sorta.  Once I’d spun the little disk around 8 or 23 times, I was again yelled at to hurry up and I’d quickly shove the pencil in and started cranking.  Grrrresh, grr-rrr-rrr-esh.  That’s the sharpening noise.

Oh dear!  The shavings container is full.  Better empty it.  This was great because now I got to make noise and potentially disrupt the class.  You couldn’t just dump the thing out, you had to bang it on the side of the trashcan.  Hard.  For about an hour.  Again, the teacher would bring an end to my fun.  So now I was usually given an ultimatum, either sharpen my pencil or sit down.  So I would.  Slowly.  Grrr.  Grrr. Grrr.  Grrr. Grrr.

“Monty!”

“What?” Grrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr.

Grrr. Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

Heh, heh, heh.

Sometimes when I was really dreading sitting in my seat quietly I’d take off the shaving holder/safety device to watch the little spinning blade devices do the shaving.  I thought it to be a very clever engine of destruction.  I often pondered making one large enough to sharpen cars.

By now my 12 inch pencil was about 3 inches long.  I’d have to sit down because it was too short to use in the sharpener.  Although I did try once… but it just spun around providing no entertainment whatsoever.

After 70 or 80 times of doing this the teacher caught on and would require me to have 4 or 5 sharpened pencils ready.  Really? Crink, Crink, Crink, Crink, Crink.  “Teacher, I need to sharpen 5 pencils!”

Who did they think they were dealing with?

Then they’d try to get another kid in on it.  You know that narc kid every class had.

“Teach, I need to sharpen my battery of pencils.”

“Holly Helpful will you please give him a pencil to use?”

“Say whaa?”

*snap*

“It broke.”

“Holly Helpful will you please sharpen his pencils for him?”

Holly Helpful would give me a look like she felt that by working for the warden it would advance her station in life and would make her the envy of everyone.  In reality, it was 3rd grade and whatever smiles gleaned from the teacher, the snitch’s fate was always to get a skull fracture due to excessive blunt force trauma in dodge ball or to have an “accident” on the monkey bars.

Plotting a snitch’s demise was another good time waster… but that’s for another post.  In the meantime,  what were some of your greatest time wasting tactics in the early years of public education?