Crackle! Pop! SNAP!

It's a good thing I'm such a mellow, stable person. A lesser soul would've snapped by now.

No, this is not about the shit in the streets, or mind-boggingly stupid taxi drivers, or eery nationalistic college students. This post is about fireworks.

Every fucking Sunday morning, like clockwork, they go off. Seemingly right outside my window. And EARLY. I'm talking, like, 9 AM. Gawd knows what's being celebrated every week at this time. The Chinese set them off on birthdays, when businesses open, when they find 10 RMB in the street...any miniscule cause for celebration at all results in the ceremonial lighting of the wick followed by the ritualistic "oohs" at the sight/sound of exploding gunpowder. I had one student tell me they even set off fireworks at funerals, which seems bizarre to me.

And it's not just the noise waking me up. I've just never understood what the big fuss was all about, here or back home. You light someting on fire and it blows up. Big frikkin deal. Once you've seen it once...apparently you need to see it ten thousand more times, according to the rest of the fireworks-craving world. But for me once or twice is enough. Maybe if the firework was actually destroying something, like a window or a small car, then it might be interesting. But otherwise I'm tuned out.

And remember in "Land of the Dead," the zombie movie, how the zombies were so easily distracted by fireworks? Call me a fireworks-elitist, but that's how I feel about fireworks-lovers. You're all mindless zombies waiting to be hacked to bits by machete-wielding survivalists. And you deserve it. So keep your head in the clouds if you like, but when John Leguizamo comes looking for me I'll be ready.