Oh Good, It's The 4th of July!

Tonight will be a big night for us.

With Carla working a 3 to 11 shift at the hospital, Chica, Rufus and I will just sit and look at each other. Well, the dogs will sit and stare at me staring at a computer or iPhone screen. Until the fireworks start anyway. Then both of them will try desperately to climb up onto my head. Chica will curl up and tremble while I hold her and tell her it’s OK, but she doesn’t believe me. Certainly monsters are out there violently putting an end to all life on earth. Tyrannosaurs running rampant, up and down our street, slamming their tails to the earth with thunderclaps that shake the walls, Poodle parts hanging limp in their teeth.

Rufus will try to rip the flesh from my chest in his efforts to crawl inside of me. He did it last night during a thunderstorm. He’s a five-year-old rescue who had been abused by a man and normally avoids me whenever possible. We’ve never been close. He changes his tune when the explosions start though and I have raised claw marks on my chest from last night to prove it.

Personally, I miss the days of legal fireworks that really blew stuff up. Cherry Bombs and M80’s. We dipped them into multiple layers of glue and BB bullets. One of those bombs, taped to the windshield of an enemy auto, with the fuse shoved up the cool end of a lit cigarette, gave us five minutes to get away. My friends and I should still be doing time. Prostrates like grapefruit and stuck in year 55 of Juvie lockdown.

But my dogs would hate the personal use stuff. The show downtown is already way too scary, even from a distance. If I started lobbing cherry bombs at home, they wouldn’t just be playing dead, they would go ahead and keel over, believing the Tyrannosaurs must be the reason the trees at the edge of our yard are shaking.

Throughout our frenzied love fest, I can’t even have a beer. I go alcohol free for 30 days, every fourth month of the year, just to recalibrate. This is one of those months. Sitting at home, trying to tell the dogs that monsters aren’t real, no beer and no Carla, sucks.

It all makes me feel like a very old man.

Maybe I’ll at least be able to find some Lawrence Welk Show reruns to brighten my evening. His music is quite snappy. You can’t help but feel energized when Barbara and Bobby start to dance.

I think the dogs will like that too.