Editor's note: this is a post about American Independence Day celebrations
existentialmemes
Alright, I'm going to launch explosives around your house. For several hours. Yes it is dangerous and terrible for wildlife and the environment. And yes your pets will get sick from eating the debris and you will feel terrorized inside your own home.
No you can't opt out of it. Everyone is doing it and frankly it's weird that you don't want to.
No you can't be the one launching the explosives you need a license for that. You can however launch these marginally smaller ones though. Yeah just whenever you want. 2am sounds great.
So anyway, fireworks were a mistake and it's never too early to start reminding you of that.
I don't wish maiming on people who light fireworks. They can learn. I sure did. Used to be a huge fan to the point my dad and I would volunteer to help setup a few pro shows around us (one of only three happy memories with him so you can imagine how important they were to me). I now understand though and don't light them myself. I've found many people around me legitimately have just never heard the arguments against them and when I lay it out they at least only light them at reasonable times and clean up more though some no longer light them at all.
Now my asshole neighbour who three years in a row I've had to sic the city code enforcement on for just tossing his mortar tubes and boxes and stuff into my yard...
Professional firework displays are ok. If it's scheduled ahead of time and there's some choreography and art to it and it's contained to one area, that's cool. It's the people setting off mortars at all hours of the day in residential areas that I have a problem with.
And I don't really want to see limbs blown off, it's just that I've interacted with enough people who hear arguments against it, and still set a bunch of fires and blow up a bunch of explosives outside my damn house, that I have to assume malice on their part. Like, every house on this street has dogs. They've seen how their dogs react to fireworks. Why are they setting off pounds of dynamite?
What really set me off was getting banned from reddit for expressing an opinion moderately spicier than "explosions can be bad, sometimes." I like this platform because having strong opinions doesn't get me instantly banned by a machine before a human ever sets eyes on it. Even if a moderator removes my other comment, I won't be too upset, because there will be a human being behind that decision instead of an algorithm