Nonthreatening Fireworks.

Studmuffin took Bookworm to buy fireworks yesterday.

Popcorn could not be bothered to interrupt her Looney Toons marathon, and I could not be bothered to interrupt my nap, so they went without us...

"I am getting Black Cats this year. I am NOT wasting our money on those other nonthreatening firecrackers!" Studmuffin shared as we cleaned up our lunch mess.

"NONthreatening firecrackers?"

"Yes. Those we got last year were a complete rip off. I swear we could have let them explode in our hands and nothing would have happened..."

I then experienced some relief that nobody actually decided to brave the above action, and laughed inwardly at fireworks being anything BUT a rip off, because clearly, when the day is done you have literally blown every bit of money you spent on them, and there is not a blessed thing to show for it except a bunch of paper blowing around the yard, black snake marks on the sidewalk, and smoke bomb stains on the driveway...

Speaking of nonthreatening fireworks, last year we had a big show out at my folks...

The "kids" and by kids I mean my grown nieces, my hubby and two brother-in-law's and Sarah's now fiancee, were in charge of pyrotechnics...My brother David was standing over to the side smoking a cigarette so as not to endure the whining and complaining that was to come from yours truly if he smoked near me....

A rather spectacular firework fell over...

Brad, my sister Paula-who-doesn't-blog's husband yells: EVERYBODY TAKE COVER!!!

And, everyone dove for cover, with no clue where the excitement was about to happen, seeing as it's dark and all, but we all were pretty sure we needed to seek refuge...

All except my Grandma Irene, who is a bit slow now that she's 90, and my brother who was standing over enjoying his smoke...

It turns out he can still jump pretty darn high when a ball of fire comes flying straight for his feet...

Fortunately, Mom's garden and tree row did not catch fire...

In other exciting recaps form last year, Brad had bought this most awesome of fireworks called THE GRAND FINALE!

Doesn't the name get you excited and breathless with anticipation?

Well, Gentle Reader, we were breathless, but the excitement was wearing thin. You see, EVERYONE had brought fireworks, and we had been "Oohing" and "Aahing" for about 2 hours. And we were kind of suffering from burnout...Literally.

It was finale time for the big moment.

The king of all pyrotechnic extravaganzas....

The big kahoona....

The bomb...Literally.

Brad lit the fuse...The event began...

And it ended.

Two brief, disappointing explosions later, it was done.

You can imagine our disappointment.

However, it turned out the Grand Finale was a gift that keeps on giving.

The next morning we all went outside and gathered all the punks/papers/and what-nots left after a fireworks extravaganza such as we had...tossed them in a box and then into my parents burn barrel.

Where my parents got a whole new level of excited when they went to burn trash a few days later.

It turns out the Grand Finale had only partially ignited, but since it was dark (26 miles from the nearest town dark), we didn't realize it.

I guess it was pretty exciting for Dad when he lit the trash though!