I never would have seen 20 years ago what seems to be going on with one of this country’s most famous traditions: Fireworks being launched on the Fourth of July. But here we are. Fireworks are starting to see a reckoning which is long overdue, and for good reason. And let me be clear about something: I’m not actually talking about the major public displays, the ones that come with big orchestras and are situated on the other side of major lakes. I mean the smaller ones which the neighbors buy so they can blow up basically right in your ear. The ones where you go outside for work the day after and see the leftover soot and shells lying all over the driveway asphalt.
Yes, it can be hard to resist a nice display of fireworks. They’re pretty, they sparkle, and they make a satisfying boom noise when they’re lit up and launched far enough into the air. And it’s also a lot of fun to make things explode. But the problem with the small handmade fireworks starts when you realize that the Fourth displays come at very late hours on weekdays. That’s an easy workaround for children, who are in the middle of summer vacation during July. Adults, however, grow out of fireworks for that same reason. They have to get out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning and get into work, and the fifth of July frequently ends up being one of those days when a couple of morning coffees just isn’t enough. And we don’t live in a GOOD country where a person can take one of 60 free days off every year for whatever personal reason happens. We live in a country where we have to keep our phone on during surgeries just in case work decides it needs us anyway.
Furthermore, the effects the constant ringing explosions have on our pets hasn’t gone unnoticed. Dogs and cats have sensitive hearing, and since they’re animals, they don’t know or understand what makes THESE loud noises any different from something they might hear in the wild. That means our poor pets are suffering through our neighbors’ small but loud demonstrations, and they’re showing as much by running all over the place in a panic.
The pets aren’t the only problem, either. People are ALSO having fits about fireworks. Explosions have this habit of triggering PTSD panic attacks. You know that guy across the street who was a veteran of both Iraq I and Afghanistan? His windows are closed because he’s silently hurting. He’s seen some shit and doesn’t like it when things go boom and a flashback reminding him of it suddenly rolls through his head like a sick highlight reel.
Unfortunately, panic attacks, flashbacks, and things of that sort aren’t limited to war veterans, either. We tend to think they are because of Hollywood syndrome – we ostensibly know movies and TV are fiction, but in practice, we actually suck at treating them like they’re fiction. As I’ve mentioned in recent posts, anyone is susceptible to mental diseases, and I recently had a breakdown that popped out of nowhere. One of the ways it affected me is that noises which distracted me in the past are now full-blown triggers. My head is still in the mode where it’s trained to believe shit is about to go down whenever I hear a noise which breaks up my quiet little world. My fight or flight gets set off with loud, unexpected noises. And that’s not even the worst part; the worst part is that after the noise happens, my body and my mind are always gearing up for the follow-up, even though it now knows that a follow-up is completely harmless and isn’t out to get me.
Trying to fall asleep with these noises constantly going off is a real chore. It hurts my brain for the obvious reasons, and my body can’t rest any easier because it also gets trapped in a no-win situation. I can’t sleep with the window open because of the constant fireworks getting set off, and it’s hot and that makes it hard to sleep with the windows closed. And my body was running like that for three nights. I’ve been using melatonin to help my sleeping patterns ever since my breakdown. During these few days, though, an extra shot of cannabis was warranted.
The Windy Nickel 