4th of July

I am as patriotic as the next person.  I love living in America and all the benefits that go along with it.  I love the 4th of July with our Neighborhood Breakfast, cookouts, and the professional fireworks displays.  What I don't like are the fireworks that our neighbors put on that are sure to burn down my house. 

For the last few years the boys up the street would set off firecrackers for two weeks all night long.  Bottle rockets were everywhere.  Ryan was a baby and he would be up all night from the noise.  It drove me CRAZY.  I was really trying to live and let live and not say anything.  I was young once and even though I never played with fireworks (I like all my fingers and toes and would like to keep them), I did other things that I am sure people found annoying. 

They have graduated from smoke bombs and bottle rockets to professional-grade explosives.  We live on a dead end street that has a cul-de-sac at each end.  I think I may have mentioned that we live on one third of an acre and it is heavily wooded.  It is not an appropriate place from which to launch dynamite.  Last year it was coming from further down the street so we sat outside and watched them.  This year it was coming from all directions with many of them exploding right over our house.  I wouldn't let the kids out of the house and I was afraid to walk our dog because I was sure that we would be hit. 

I was never really young.  I was born going on 50 when it came to this kind of thing.  I never played as a kid and I have never really enjoyed fireworks.  I am jumpy on a good day and this puts me right over the edge.  My hope is that now that these kids have to get up to go to work in the morning they will observe the unspoken rule that loud noise needs to stop at 10.  I will now stop acting like I am 100 years old and resume my regular life.