Bucket Head is a game. A great game. One of our favorites.

It involves me putting a yellow plastic bucket over one of my kids’ heads until their face is completely covered and then using it for a drum. All the while loudly chanting, “Buuuucket HEAAAD! BucketHeadBucketHead!” I drum fairly lightly, and they laugh and laugh and then it’s my turn to wear the bucket. It is elegant in its simplicity.

The game has evolved. Now the Peanut plays it with her little brother. In her version, she runs at him and slams the bucket down over his wispy, blond-haired, unsuspecting head and then wails on it with everything she’s got.

Just pounds the snot out of him. While screeching “BUCKET HEAD!!!” like an insane bird of prey.

The Pumpkin Man usually vacillates between laughing and crying until I can rescue him. He’s so happy she’s playing with him, but man, love hurts. She smiles and screams his name and tells me, “He likes it, Daddy. He likes it!”

It’s a little frightening for everyone. In a good way.

At our twice-weekly YMCA playgroup, not everyone talks to me. It’s mostly moms. Some of them are nice, many are standoffish. Some of the standoffish ones even go to the trouble of carrying extra, suspicious, mistrustful stares in their diaper bags that they drag out just for me.

There are times when I’m self-pitying about it and I wonder what I did wrong. Of course, when I’m honest with myself, I know what I did.

It started innocently enough. I was over to the side, playing a game of Bucket Head with my kids.

Some of the other kids noticed. They were intrigued. Who wouldn’t be?

Being naturally friendly, I shared our family game with them. At first it was just a couple of the bolder 3-year-olds. They, in turn, passed it on. Paid It Forward.

In a flash, toddlers everywhere were playing Bucket Head. Playing it hard. Like a campfire in a meth lab, it quickly got out of control. Toddlers, dozens of them — maybe hundreds — eyes wild, unseen mouths flecked with foam, running blindly, screaming, “Bucket Head!”

(Some of them had placed the bucket on their own heads and were stumbling around the gym, the call of Bucket Head echoing out from under their plastic headwear. That is not how the game is played. I mean – c’mon, guys. Pay attention. Which is something I probably shouldn’t have been saying at that moment.).

We ran out of buckets early on. They used plastic bins, toy strollers, Big Wheels, Playskool garages; whatever plastic toy they could cram onto each other’s heads and then thump. Tiny warrior-savages careening around, smiting the stuffing out of each other, crashing into each other. Screaming and eventually, swearing.

“Bucket Head! Fucking Buuucket Heaaad! GAAAHH!”

Civilizations collapsed and the playgroup plunged into chaos. Darkness. Not unlike the darkness you might experience if you were to have a bucket suddenly descend, unbidden, over your eyes.

It took us a long time to recover. Not everyone has forgiven me.

I wonder if they would like Cymbal Feet any better?

A version of this first appeared on Musings from the Big Pink. Main photo: © Michael Kachalov / Adobe Stock. Secondary photo: Homemaker Man.

Many Mother’s Days ago, when people still believed blogging had career potential and advertisers only catered to XX chromosomes, a parenting site hot for clicks published an article by a dad called “Top 10 Things Mothers Do Better Than Fathers.” It’s caused a lot of consternation among the online dad community probably because the writer illustrates in great detail about how few parenting abilities a father (the writer himself) has when compared with a mother (his wife).

That whole “mom vs. dad” thing still chaps my ass.

In the spirit of community, generosity, support and solidarity with my fellow fathers, I have written a list of the Top 10 Things Moms Don’t Do as Well as Dads. This will definitely clear up any confusion or lingering animosity as well as imbue with confidence those dads who feel as inept in their parenting roles as the writer of the original post did.

10. Play catch

Everyone knows it’s a dad’s job to play catch with his kids. Or with his sons, at any rate. Moms just don’t have the genetic catching ability. That’s science, people. Everyone knows women’s hands are made mostly of silk and crystal. That’s why they’re so much better at soft things like diaper changing. Don’t throw a ball to your mom. You’ll just break her hands.

9. Punch

Dads are just better at punching. They just are. They punch more things more often for a larger variety of reasons than moms ever do. Also, see No. 10 — re: Mom hands.

8. Discipline the children

Everyone knows moms can’t discipline their children. Their voices are all high-pitched and soft, and all they want to do is snuggle. Also, it’s a little known fact that moms are not biologically able to say things like “go to your room ” or “you’re grounded.” Their lips and tongues actually can’t form those phrases. Again, science. That’s why they’re always saying “wait ’til your father gets home.” Which brings me to No. 7.

7. Work. At a job. For like, money.

Dads work. They bring home the bacon so the moms can fry it up in a pan. Dads are just better suited to the demands of the work-a-day world than fragile, high-pitched and snugly moms. Don’t get me wrong: raising kids is hard work. Just not as hard as actually working.

6. Dispense wisdom

Dads are natural founts of wisdom. With all the years they’ve spent working and punching things, they’ve learned a thing or two about life. A mom can tell you how to wash your ears, but when it comes to understanding human nature, forget it. They’ve got their heads in the clouds and their noses in the Zappos website.

4. Math

This one is pretty much self-explanatory. One plus one equals man, baby. It’s in the Bible, I’m pretty sure. Plus (a math term), with all the remembering recipes and shopping for the house, moms just don’t have the brain space left over for dealing with numbers.

3. Science, duh.

Moms are way too squeamish for science. Science includes things like fluids and gravity and so forth. Try explaining those things to someone who changes diapers all day.

2. Drive

Moms are notoriously bad drivers. That’s why the only driving they do is to and from school, playdates and extracurricular activities with the kids, to go shopping, and to pick dads up from the train when they get home from work.

1. Fix things

Moms never fix things. It’s just not natural for them. For one thing, there is the problem with their hands. Also, the math involved. Finally, anyone who spends their day kissing boo-boos, snuggling, cooking, cleaning, changing diapers and shopping would not have the first idea about how to use tools. Dads automatically know how to use tools from the time their first offspring is born. Or even before that, really. I’d say most men who become dads have known how to use their own tools at least since puberty. It’s a dad skill, plain and simple.

This is not a complete “mom vs. dad” list. There are many other areas in life at which dads excel over their female counterparts: lifting things, fantasy football, serial killing …

We offer up these 10 solely to boost the self-esteem of those dads out there who so often feel like the lesser parent. Let the healing begin.

And to all the moms out there, Happy Mother’s Day. Please don’t punch me.

A version of this first appeared on Musings from the Big Pink.

One Father’s Day, my wife helped the kids bake me those hand and foot prints that you harden in the oven and then paint. They tasted awful but I ate three of them. Because when my kids bake me something, I eat it. Even when it’s not really edible. Because that is the kind of father I am.

This is why I deserve a Father’s Day. I know it’s bullshit. I know it’s a holiday invented by an unholy triumvirate of Hallmark, Faberge, and super-intelligent werewolves to get us all to buy cards and Brut. It’s well known that werewolves love the taste of Brut. It’s science.

I don’t even need a card or much of a gift, really. I’m not asking for anything fancy. Like that ad for a cellphone where the dad buys himself one on behalf of his baby daughter because he rationalizes that she’d want him to have it. Disgusting. And wasteful. The last thing I need is a new smartphone so I can ignore my kids. I can ignore my kids just fine with this laptop right here. Or a book. Or even just by curling up on the couch in the fetal position and closing my eyes until they go away.

My point being, I am an excellent dad. I’ve earned a day in celebration of my fatherhood. As contrived as it might be. I just want to go out for breakfast, that’s all. Just go out for breakfast, come home, see them clean the house maybe. That’s all. Breakfast, a clean house, and a pedicure. And a sixer of Newcastle. They can use the fake IDs I got them for their birthdays to buy it.

Because whether it’s a contrived holiday or not (and by the way, what constitutes a contrived holiday? Christmas and Easter are bizarre soups of pagan and Christian traditions, Halloween is from Celtic pagans, Presidents’ Day falls on no day belonging to any president, and Groundhog Day … actually, that one is pretty legit), we dads deserve a day.

A day to celebrate those of us who are up to our elbows in the shit, literal or otherwise, every day.

Then we should have Deadbeat Dad’s Day in August. When they show up to get their baked footprints, we nab’em!

A version of this first appeared on Musings from The Big Pink.

I find several tips in Power Dads: The 10 Basic Principles Successful Fathers Use to Raise Happy and Responsible Children by Wayne Parker to be useful.

Don’t yell. Do big projects with the family. Take time for yourself. Match the punishment to the transgression. Reward good behavior. Enable community service. Don’t worry about succinct book titles. Chestnuts that while time worn, were well organized, easy to follow and are still helpful to be reminded of on those difficult days.

Parker is, if anything can be inferred from his writing, generally a kind and well-meaning person. He is also a person writing from and for a certain ancient, archetypal, self-help … you know what? Let me just show you.

In honor of the 10 “power principles” (we find out in Power Dads that the principles from the title are far more than basic), here are 10 examples of why this book belongs to the genre of “It Came From The 1970s”:

1. Parker spends a lot of time referencing other self-help authors in his self-help book. Mentions of any sort of non-anecdote based and footnoted research are at a minimum. The author quotes one such guru, Dr. Stephen Covey, so many times I’ve retitled the book Power Dr. Coveys: The 10 Basic Dr. Coveys Successful Dr. Coveys Use to Dr. Covey Happy and Responsible Dr. Coveys.

2. On “Managing Stress at Home” in the subsection titled “Make time for you” (absolutely, absolutely essential) Parker writes, “Participate in a favorite hobby that makes you a better man, husband, and father. Getting high or just aimlessly surfing the Internet are not as good as a little golf, hiking, reading, or working in the yard.”

Are those my only choices? Because getting high or aimlessly surfing the internet I’ll take over doing yard work any day. Or a little golf for that matter. Like wearing those pants could ever make you a better father.

3. On “Patriotism,” he writes in Power Dads that a Fourth of July parade his “ten or eleven year-old daughter stood up and tugged on my shirt. ‘Dad, we have to stand up and take off our hats. The flag is coming.’” He then writes, “Somehow, she learned something about flags, respect, and patriotism” then she “knew instinctively what was appropriate.”

Was it a learned response or an instinctual one doesn’t even matter yet because first we have to deal with the lousy job being done paying attention to his daughter’s age and her patriotism. I wonder if he watches The Americans. I’m not saying Parker may be a Russian spy from 1982. I’m implying it.

4. On “Teen Sexuality,” Parker offers abstinence. Abstinence is a great idea for teenagers. I know it is because when I was a kid I abstained way longer than most, I’m pretty sure. A long time. It was easy, really, because for me getting laid was near impossible so I just decided I wouldn’t do it. Statistics will back me up on two things: 1) I did not get laid a lot as a teenager and 2) a lot of kids do, even the abstinent ones.

5. On talking to your preschooler about sex, he writes in Power Dads  you can help them “Name body parts.” Good advice. My 6-year-old calls his balls SamnEric. He’s pretty good with names. Parker also emphasizes “Teaching Privacy and Respect.” Can’t argue with that. He also mentions “Healthy Touch.” In this paragraph, he names healthy kinds of touch –”hugging and cuddling” — and bad kinds of touching, “touching their own or others genitals.”

I was never ever a proponent of my pre-schoolers touching other people’s genitals. Totally anti-that. I’m still against it even though they’re now in elementary school. But touching their own? Telling your toddler they can’t touch their own bodies is crazy. Have at it, guys. As long as it’s private, you go to it. Go nuts. If you’re planning on your kids being the rare — very, very rare — iron-willed abstinence teen, they’d better have free reign down there when puberty hits.

6. On how to “Respect Diversity,” Parker writes that when his kids were growing up a family who “emigrated from Spain” moved in next door so “we invited this family over to teach us about their country and customs.”

That is one condescending and awkward invitation. If I had been the dad in that family, I would’ve half-turned and hissed, “Run! It’s a trap!”

7. One of my favorites in Power Dads. On “Teaching Our Sons to Respect Women,” in subsection “Use respectful terms when referring to women,” Parker says we should “avoid calling a woman a ‘skank’ or a ‘bimbo’ even if she dresses or acts provocatively. Talk about the behavior and why it is inappropriate rather than using a shorthand derogatory term to describe the behavior.”

Yeah, you know even if a chick is acting like a real bimbo (because it’s 1952) don’t call her one. Just explain to her in a roundabout way what a complete bag of amoral bimbosity she is, and how you’re judging her for it, and so is God, so she should probably stop being such a skank. Especially because it’s making it really hard for you to stick with the whole abstinence thing.

8. Parker is a big fan of “traditional values.” It doesn’t matter what you think of as traditional values, whenever you read or hear someone espousing them, you know it’s trouble, because the phrase “traditional values” means “if your values are different from mine, you’re a weirdo. Probably from Spain.”

9. “The Power of the Golden Sword.” This one is a doozy. Parker tells some parable –again written by a different self-help expert — about how men have two penises (I mean swords), one silver and one gold. The silver one is for work and climbing the ladder and the golden penis is the one you “strap on” when you “[come] in the door.” I swear to God he wrote that. And, of course, that’s only if your spouse is really, really lucky.

Once all 10 power dad principles have been established, the Power of the Golden Penis shows up in every single chapter of the book as a primary power principle to put in play. Penis.

10. Perseverance. Parker’s daughter Parker* plays piano. Apparently little Parker Parker is very good at the piano. So Mr. Wayne Parker uses her as an example of perseverance. She is able to continue to be really good at playing the piano even when the music she’s playing gets more challenging. It’s very inspiring. To be good at something and then still be good at it? Amazing and relevant to every parent who has a child who is really good at something and who aspires to stay that way.

*All children’s names are approximations.

Santa Claus guilt. I never thought I’d have it. Santa is fun and we believe that fantasy is good for children and, Lord knows, everyone lies to their kids at some point, even if they don’t think they’re doing it. I have guilt because the following is Peanut’s belief system, and the responsibility for it rests on my wife and me.

“Marina and I were at school today.” Marina is her best friend at school. They talk a lot. “Marina and I were at school today and we were talking about what happens when you die –“

“You were talking about when you die?”

“Yeah, and we think that when you die that’s it. You’re just dead and there is just nothing.”

“What? You guys were talking about death and you think when you die there’s nothing?”

“Yup, that’s what I think. I think you die and then *shrug*, that’s it.”

“Oh.”

Whoa.

This is pretty much verbatim the conversation I had with the Peanut as we took advantage of a particularly sun-splashed afternoon to make a stop at the playground on the way home from school. Certain and unfazed by the absolute end, the Peanut hangs lightly by her legs from the monkey bars.

At first, I allowed myself to wonder whose ideas these were. Is my little fairy princess the existential boogeyman of kindergarten room 8 or was it her friend Marina?

That question was answered for me a few days later when she told me that in school that day during recess she had been spreading her secular gospel of the damned throughout her class. She had told Alexis and Velma about the end of existence. The lack of eternity. And, she said, “We all agreed.”

And, lo, the Peanut spoke from the monkey bars on high and proclaimed that death is final, and saw that it was good. And the people followed.

Meanwhile, the existence of Santa has been confirmed.

“Sometimes Marina and I talk about the Grinch and we wonder if he’s real.”

I shrug. “Oh yeah?”

She grins. “Yeah. Nobody knows. But Santa is real, though.”

So there you have it. The afterlife is a dream, but Santa is definitely coming and, in the Peanut’s head, he’s probably part fairy.

And I feel guilty about this in part, at least, because I’m an atheist. Let me qualify that a little. I’m not anti-God or even anti-religion. How can I be? I’m an atheist. I can’t be anti-something I don’t believe in. I mean I could, but what’s the point? Religion isn’t evil and it isn’t divine, it’s human.

And that belief, along with our willingness to talk about God in an objective way, to sing prayers during Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah, to answer “we don’t know, nobody really does,” when the kids ask what happens when you die, to believe in Santa and fairies right along with them, says to me that we leave room for faith, we don’t deny them it. Nor would we. If they do end up atheists (Deniers of Gawd!), I’d rather it was something they came to themselves rather than for the reason most people have a given religion … because their parents do.

Yet, there it is. Faith Denied.

So it really feels like lying when I play up Santa Claus. Really, really. Who am I to derail my tiny philosopher from her search for truth with my silly mythical bullshit?

I’m her dad, that’s who. And I guess if I’ve thus far failed her in terms of allowing her the room to experience religious faith, the least I can do is give her the space and encouragement to believe in a magical fat guy with genius Elven slaves and a sleigh that travels at near light speed solely through the power of reindeer farts.

And also, fairies are real. And the Glass Ceiling isn’t.

A version of this first appeared on Musings from The Big Pink. 

Santa Claus death photo: flickr.com/Steve Jurvetson

Back in June, before the school day begins, my daughter is writing in her diary. I take a peek because I’m curious and often she keeps it pretty secret. It’s got a little lock and everything. Usually it has things in it like a portrait of herself with her name under it and on the top of the page the musing, “I love me.” Or one whole page covered corner to corner by the lone exclamation, “My brother is CRAZY!”

I take a lot of peeks. She leaves the key around. Something about unlocking that little pink diary to read it feels oh-so-right and so wrong simultaneously. I blame the NSA.

On this particular day in question, she has drawn a picture of a flower, dated it June 11, and written a caption above the picture that says “It is winter.”

I say, “Hey honey that’s pretty intriguing, writing it is winter over a picture like that. Very creative.”

She says, “No, but it’s not that.”

I say, “OK, honey, I just think it’s cool is all.”

“No, it’s not what that says though,” she replies.

“OK, well, even if you didn’t mean it, I still think it’s neat. Sometimes mistakes turn out to be really –“

She collapses to her knees like a pocket James Brown and screeches, “Noooooo!  It’s not THAT!” And then buries her face in her hands. Hardest-working tantrum thrower in show business. Godfather of soul devouring outrage.

It’s early so I get mad. I slam what ever it is I’m holding (hair brush? lunch box? Monkey’s Paw?) down on the dining room table, spill some water and bark, “No! Why are you yelling at me! Stop it!” I pick her up and put her down on her feet and send her to her room. She comes down and we talk about communication. She says sorry, I say sorry, and we go to school. I never find out what happened and we don’t really talk about it again.

At home later that afternoon, she writes this and hands it to me:

It reads, “Dear daddy, I love you. I Love You! Happy Father’s Day. I hope it’s fun. Me and Pumpkin Man did the best we could at listening. Thank You.

I immediately scoop her up in my arms and squeeze her and cover her face in kisses and babble about how wonderful she and her brother are (you like how she threw him in there for good measure?) and how much I love them. Emotionally eviscerated, my head swims from lack of blood and I have to sit down and put it between my knees where I’ve cleverly hidden a bourbon.

Some bourbon. A liter of bourbon.

Even-tempered vs. the evil-minded

When you’re with them every day, all day, you see the best of them and the worst. The thing is, they see the same of you. You can’t help it.

A lot of parenting advice boils down to being even tempered. Don’t get too high or too low. Don’t yell or freak out or get too excited. Be calm and cool at all times. Walk away, take a timeout, breathe deep and consult your higher power (mine’s a chicken burrito. With guac!).

You know, just don’t react with any sort of emotional extreme to actions taken by the people you are biologically programmed to love more than life itself. Easy Peasy. When you’re kid wins the race, fucks up at school, performs an act of kindness, lathes the cat, poops in the potty for the first time, etc., don’t over emote. Just stay on an even keel.

That parenting philosophy, with the notable exception of gender roles, hasn’t really changed all that much from the 1950s archetype. Just knock the bowl of your Father Knows Best pipe with the heel of your hand, and tousle their hair/give them a stern talking to, and go back to your Twitter feed.

The truth is, we don’t do that. Not every time.

The truth is, even the most even-tempered of us have called our toddlers fucking assholes when they’re acting like fucking assholes or squealed like Bieberites at the Bieber Ice Cream Smorgasbord Jamboree and Hair Combing Expo when they nail the landing in gymnastics. It’s natural. We feel passion for these little genius/assholes.

The truth is, to remain the even-tempered parent we’re supposed to be all the time, that pipe bowl has to be loaded with sociopathic tendencies and opium.

The thing is, they bubble with potential, our kids. That means the potential to be almost anything. Anything doesn’t just mean astronaut or president. It means junkie or murderer or lobbyist. They are human, they are imperfect. Their potential is near limitless. And as parents, we are the same. Imperfect. More so, maybe. We’ve had longer to work on our imperfections.

And when you spend countless hours with tiny beings who are just learning the world, those imperfections come to bare. Yours rub against theirs and it results in days of too much yelling, too many tears, too much guilt, too much pride. It happens. What’re you gonna do? We love them on a cellular level. That kind of passion is sure to lead to some amount of ill. I mean, have you seen humans?

I strive for even-tempered. I really do. But I’m a man of loud voice and large opinion. So my kids know when I’m angry. They also know when I’m happy or proud or content or silly or gassy. Especially gassy. They know it all. In return so do I. It’s not so bad, knowing when they’re sad and when they’re happy. Knowing for sure. Makes things a little less complicated. Sometimes. Other times it makes getting ready for school in the morning sound like the Red Wedding.

And they test the even-tempered. They probe it with whines placed just so or negative responses to reasonable requests. They tap, tap, tap on the wall of my pleasant detachment with psychological ball-peen hammers until the wall cracks and I can feel my blood pressure behind my eyes and I’m pretty sure my nose and left ear are bleeding freely. Then there are the times when my better nature wins out and no matter how they probe and poke and tap and claw, I hold firm. I’m usually pretty proud of myself when that happens. Glassy eyed and exhausted, but proud.

What I hope (what else can I do?) is that in the tumult of a household full of passion and opinion (and gas) that they find themselves unafraid of their emotions. That as they get older they can feel and express themselves openly with just enough restraint to not get arrested.

Let me add, just for posterity, that they really do listen well. Most times.

Editor’s Note: A version of this even-tempered post first appeared on Musings from The Big Pink. Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash

Today in my house, we learned a lesson. If you don’t want to clean that shit up, don’t do that shit.

We have a set of plastic bins from Target to help with cleaning up and organizing. Don’t mean to brag. We have a set of colorful plastic bins from Target in which a lot of the kids’ smaller toys are stored. Blocks, dolls, fake food and plates, old pay-as-you-go cell phones, poker chips, empty cigarette boxes, bottle caps, three-penny nails, mercury. You know.

I heard the sound of thousands of tiny plastic pieces hitting a hardwood floor.

“Are you dumping out the bins?” I asked rhetorically.

“Complete Silence!” they answered.

I asked again. “Yeah but, we’re using them for some lunatic pre-schooler made-up game reason!” they replied.

“OK,” I said, “but if you empty out all the bins, that means you are going to be doing a lot of cleaning up later. OK?”

“OK,” they replied with confidence.

I drove my point home annoying-parent style. I went around the corner, got them looking at me, and repeated myself in a voice that was still at the same volume it had been when I was a room away. With an added threat: “You guys will have to clean it up all yourselves.”

“OK,” they answered brusquely.

They were a little annoyed now because some loud moron kept moving closer and closer to them, repeating himself as he went. I don’t blame them.

“All right,” I answered with all the arrogance of someone who knows he’s about to be right and can’t wait to get there. Parents really do suck.

Cleaning up is hell

And so it happened. I gave them a 15-minute warning for cleaning up. Ten. Five. 2. One and a half minutes. 47 seconds. 31. 19. 11. You can tell I’m getting mad when I slip into prime numbers

They were shocked when I started yelling. Shocked. But to their credit, they dug in and tried not to get the job done.

I helped, of course. I put the bins back in the rack, and put a few toys in each so they would have an idea of what went there. Had their hands replaced with rakes. To little avail.

When it’s time to clean up around here, you have two choices. Clean up and win first prize: 15 minutes of TV or a treat, maybe both on a good day. Second prize is, you’re fired. There are no steak knives.

So clean up or go to time-out and if you continue to fuck around, you go to bed.

My son, The P-Man, never had a chance. There was a carpet of foot-hurting, over-priced, beloved pieces of plastic from one end of the room to the other. Probably thousands of pieces. He tried for a little while. He failed. Time-out, back up from the time-out, five minutes of cleaning, bedtime. He cried for about five minutes and then passed out. Couldn’t. Handle. The Clean-up.

The Peanut, my daughter, continued. Alone against a sea of junk. I let her go for a bit by herself. Then I pitched in. We finished up and went off to collect her prizes. She was so proud of herself. “I did it all by myself, Daddy!”

“Bullshit!” I did not reply.

But I could’ve. I was well within my rights. It was cool how proud of herself she was for cleaning up her own mess. It was a gargantuan task. I just hope that feeling of pride doesn’t backfire when she gets older.

“Yeah, D-d-daddy, I was shitfaced and I hit this guy dead on. But instead of driving away, I stopped, collected the body and took it home. A Skilsaw and some lime later, and boom, no more body! I cleaned it up all by myself!”

Of course, I’d still be proud of her.

A version of this first appeared on Musings from the Big Pink. Photo by Carson Arias on Unsplash.

What stars shine and fade and shine again in the sky; warming upturned faces with the glow of patriotism writ loud upon a black canvas?

Why, those would be fireworks.

I fucking hate fireworks.

I didn’t always. Then the kids came, and we moved and I found myself penned in by seasonally jingoistic merrymakers. Packed into a neighborhood where the houses are separated by long, thin driveways, real estate law and little else. Neighbors’ voices come unbidden, crashing through screens in windows open to the summer, and alerting us to their favorite jam or who, exactly, needs to “fuck off.”

Imagine then the sound of low-budget fireworks, placed in the street in front of your house, the fuse hurriedly lit before a car can come and ruin it all. Greenish glows and pops like gunshots well past bedtime alerting everyone that it is fucking America’s birthday, y’all.

Fireworks: For the drunken and soon-to-be fingerless

I don’t begrudge the patriotic their due on the Fourth itself. It warms even my cynical heart to look out upon the drunken and soon-to-be fingerless as they light their fuses and think to myself, “Happy Birthday, you ol’ battle axe.”

Once upon a time, I would even brave the throng, 300,000 people strong, to see Boston light its own offering to the gods of war and sovereignty, happy to be squashed against my fellow Americans as the Pops played on.

It’s really the celebrations on the 3rd and the 5th and the 6th and sometimes right up through the 20th that the display of “America, Fuck Yeah” begins to wear Keira Knightley thin.

I’m sure next year we’ll find a place to go and see some real fireworks. The kids will be delighted as lemon yellow and freeze-pop blue flowers of fire bloom 200 feet high and the petals fall and fade, slow and soft and reflected in small shining eyes. And that’s the moment when I will learn to embrace the fervor of my neighbors.

When, on a warm, still August night I will hear the battle cry, “Dude! Don’t shoot that fahckin’ bottle rocket at my fahckin car!” and I will softly chuckle to myself and whisper, “Happy belated birthday, you Grand Old Bitch.”

Because that is America, too.

Photo by Nicolas Tissot on Unsplash