Fireworks are ...

... dumb, stupid, loud, annoying ... Do I need to continue? I never much liked fireworks and while I could live with the fireworks that are shot into the sky and light it up, I absolutely hate the firecrackers that just explode and make too much noise. My friend Dan put it nicely by saying that being at a party on 4th of July "resembled the Battle of Somme" more than a celebration of Independence Day. Why do I hate it so much? Well, for one thing, they scare my dog, they litter the neighborhood and they just make noise, so what's the point?
Apparently, a lot of people see a point in lighting up a firecracker and see it explode in front of them. I admit, when I was a teenager I did it too in Germany. Over there we don't celebrate Independence Day but use fireworks on New Year's Eve to welcome the new year. We did a lot of stupid things with it and I am not proud of it today. But pretty much, by the time I hit the age of 17 I stopped buying them because I think it's one of the dumbest ways to spend money. What is even more concerning is that some of these fireworks are put together for thousands and thousands of dollars. Where does the money come from? I sure hope that it is mostly corporate sponsor money and not tax dollars but even then, the money could be spent much better. I found a few articles online that in 2003 the estimated spending for fireworks was around 500 million dollars. Yup, that's right, that's a half billion dollars. How about donating it to schools? Or to feed the poor? There is places in the world, in which a few dollars a week can feed an entire family for a week or so and yet people choose to take their money and blow it up. Makes no sense to me.
At some point my little boys probably want to to blow up some firecrackers too and I am not quite sure what I will tell them why we don't want to do it. But they are young so I have a lot of time to come up with something. And if I am lucky (and all the dogs and cats that are scare senseless by the noise), firecrackers will be illegal or gone or at so heavily taxed that people won't buy them anymore.