So, this year, I decided I would overcome my pyrophobia and indulge the urge to buy some sparklers and a few fireworks for the season. We drove our boys to summer camp on the 4th, passing several stands selling elaborate displays of 'crackers and I vowed to stop on the way home.
"Oh, if you all get fireworks, you'd better save some for us when we get home! We want Sparklers, too!"
Ok, I'm a sucker, but not THAT much of a sucker. We stopped at a huge stand on the way back home (they take credit cards these days!). We gaped at the variety of boxes of fireworks. They must have been the giant Saturn-shaped ones that you see at the elaborate shows in State Parks: $59, $69, $79, and upwards of $99 PER FIREWORK!!!! This was obviously more than a pyrophobia hurdle, it was becoming a finance-O-phobia issue.
After much ado, and a helpful teen's advice ("oh, yes - my brothers and I chase each other holding these things EVERY year!!!! They're just Roman Candles.... Well, I guess it's not THAT safe...."), we bought a five-pack of Roman Candles (under $10) and three boxes of Sparklers (less than $1 each!).
Not that anyone wants to know the extent of my pyrophobia, but let's just say, there were no candles in the church at our wedding, and I lost my breath during the candlelight ceremony in college sorority "Sentimental Night" every year.... The image of one person scalded by hot wax and dropping their candle next to another person's gown/robe or whatever..... A whole room filled with people and flames trying to escape is not my idea of a party.
We set up our little show in the back yard on the 4th. We actually had the perfect Roman Candle stand: the concrete clothes-line hole (where you put the metal pole that holds the circular, tent-shaped clothes line that didn't last a whole summer). I have to say, I was pretty excited, standing there with our five-year-old daughter and my husband, feeling pretty cool to be having fireworks in our own back yard.
You know, those things go off really fast. It probably would have been better to hold the stick than to balance it in the oversized clothes-line hole. After the first burst of color (aka FLAME) shot out, the Roman Candle turned about 45 degrees toward our house. Instantly, a second burst turned it another 45 degrees, and these things go off five times. You get the picture. My daughter and I ran screaming into the house, ducking for cover, while my husband tried to straighten the thing without getting shot by it.
Roman Candle #2: Same thing.
Onto the Sparklers! My husband used the incense-looking "ember stick" the teenager at the stand gave us to light our sparklers and fireworks. It didn't work. Armed with a lighter and the patience of Job, he did finally get a Sparkler lit at the expense of a molten thumb.
Sparkler #2: Same thing. Only mine was the molten thumb.
Back to Roman Candles - one last shot (literally)! It still turned right toward our house and sent us all screaming for shelter.
We still have three boxes (minus two) of Sparklers for when the boys return, and two Roman Candles. Perhaps the safest thing to do is let them chase each other with the Roman Candles? They wouldn't waste fire by pointing it at the house, that's for sure!
In sum, I can say that the only thing that has changed over the last 40 years is that the Fireworks vendors take credit cards. Even the packaging for the Sparklers hasn't changed since the 1960s. Same star, same smell, same colors, and I'm still just as afraid of them now as I was as a little girl. Mom's still rolling her eyes at me from Heaven as she's rolling over in her grave that I got near those things again. RIP, Mom - not quite ready to join you. We may have to table my pyrophobia-ending strategies for now, if only for our own safety.
Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!
God bless,
Angie
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