Run For Your Life! It's Victoria Day!

The first time I was nearly killed, a Buzz Bee tore through the air straight at my face and forced me to dive into the soft Florida sand. The Buzz Bee followed suit, exploding right beside me. It was unexpected.

Buzz Bees had a plastic pair of "wings" clipped to them which enabled them to fly around. But I never foresaw it flying out over the Gulf of Mexico, turning 180 degrees and zooming straight back at my face.

You'd think I would have learned from that experience, but you'd be wrong. Every Victoria Day I haphazardly light off fireworks with friends, clad in minimal protection (read: t-shirt and jeans).

For the first time possibly ever, I read the warnings on the fireworks I purchased for Victoria Day 2013. And boy was I shocked. The warnings are absurd. In fact they're literally impossible to adhere to. So what are these warnings? I'll start with the 50-Shot Strobing Missile cake.

The strobing missiles state "Light fuse and stand clear 60 meters." That's right, 60 meters. That's just shy of 200 feet. The fuse is 5 seconds, give or take. Usain Bolt, are you reading my blog? Well, Mr. Bolt, how long does it take you to cover 200 feet? Please leave me a comment!

Next up is one of my fav's. It's small, but cool: The Hot Tamale. The Hot Tamale instructions tell spectators to stand clear 70 meters! That's 230 feet! In five seconds I can barely run the length of my driveway, let alone the ENTIRE width of my block!

And now for the best. The Cherry Bomb. A single shot, one big bang. Are you ready for this?

You must stand clear a whopping ONE HUNDRED METERS from the Cherry Bomb. Can you even begin to fathom that? Here, let me help you. Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, lights the fuse and starts sprinting. After five seconds the Cherry Bomb launches into the air. Usain has covered 50 meters - just. Twenty-six seconds later, nearly the entire length of a bad Pizza Pops commercial, Usain Bolt hits the safe point. The Cherry Bomb exploded 5 years ago, a new President was sworn in, and everyone's 11 year old daughter now has her driver's license.

It's Victoria Day! Run for your lives!

Lighter Roulette

My eyes instinctively shut and I jerked backwards as I was overwhelmed by the repugnant & revolting stench of burned human hair choking me.

Momentarily stunned, it took me a second to retrace all the events that led up to this horrific moment, starting with my discovery of two mud-covered tea lights laying in my garden. They were backup tealights, placed inside my Jack-o-lanterns on Halloween.

They were quite unpleasant to look at, so I figured I'd see if they still worked. If they did, I'd light them and get them out of the way. "Besides," I thought, "I like candles."

I picked up my dollar store BBQ lighter, identical to the kind you can buy at Canadian Tire or Home Depot for three times what I paid. It was yellow.

The first pull of the trigger was much like the 10th, and the 15th... and the 20th. I aimed the BBQ lighter at the tea lights and pulled the trigger over and over again. Each time I was greeted with the same empty 'click'.

I figured something had to be wrong with the lighter. I shook it, I pointed up in the air, I tried everything. Nothing. I looked for the tiny window that indicated how much butane remained. The level was low, but it still should have lit.

I shook the lighter again and again, and continued pulling the trigger, each time getting more and more frustrated. Click. Click. Click. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The next moment reminded me exactly of the morons you read about in the Darwin Awards, and of Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, or any of the less intelligent Looney Tunes characters who looked down the barrel of their gun to see what was wrong with it.

That moment, which my brain was finally able to piece together from all the fragmented memory bits, was when I tried to smell whether or not gas was actually coming out of the lighter.... as I shoved it up my right nostril, and clicked the trigger.

The Donation

There are two Donation bins near my house. I believe both of them are for clothing. There are signs include the words "no dumping" and "no garbage" and that sort of thing. But sometimes there are piles of garbage in front of them. Sometimes piles of broken toys.

But not too long ago, somebody left a different donation. A Dodge Colt.

I don't know who would think they could donate a smashed up Dodge Colt with no engine. It had been rear ended and was heavily damaged. The muffler was ruined. The brake lights were broken. The trunk would not close. The bumper had fallen off. There were a large number of dents. The paint had scratches on it. There were probably cigarette burns in the upholstery. Nobody could use it. Why was it being donated?

Someone went to all the trouble of pulling the engine out, then attaching the car to a tow truck and driving it all the way over to the donation bins. That's a lot of work for a whole lotta nothin'.