Rationing firecrackers

Oaklanders love firecrackers. Maybe not as much as in people who live in places where they’re actually legal, but certainly more than the residents of any other city I’ve ever lived in. You start hearing occasional pops and sizzles in mid-June when revellers, unable to endure the wait, break open their Independence Day supplies early. The frequency of explosions increases to a predictable climax on July 4th, and then tapers off over the next few days as people come across their last forgotten caches around their homes. Normalcy usually returns by the 7th or the 8th.

That’s been the story as long as I’ve lived here. For the most part, it’s the story now.

Except one neighbor of mine (I don’t know who; the sound ricochets and I can’t pinpoint its origin) is bucking the trend by still going weeks after the holiday. He’s setting them off every evening, usually around the time I get home from work, with a rhythmic consistency that has to be deliberate. For about ten minutes, he lights one a minute, one at a time. He’s not using anything loud or exciting, just little Black Cats. Frankly, I don’t see the fun in it. All I can assume is that he’s rationing his firecrackers, figuring that small daily explosions spread out over weeks are cumulatively more enjoyable than one big barrage.

He’s wrong, though. He’s just wrong.

At the rate we’re burning through our planet’s resources, there’s going to be plenty of rationing of essentials in the years to come. Why take the joy out of recreational explosives as well? They exist for reckless abandon. Sometimes, so should we.