Fireworks: Day 1

The sheriff was at our fireworks tent when I arrived Friday morning. A woman had called to complain that there was a three-year-old boy standing on the street being exploited for advertisement purposes. I arrived just as the sheriff was leaving (an obvious good sign and good start to any venture), and the story is this: My nephew, a six-year-old boy donned his fourth of July top hat--you know, the hat that Uncle Sam wears--grabbed a sign in the shape of an arrow that reads "FIREWORKS!" and headed to the corner to fulfill his fantasy of being a business sign handler. You've seen them--they're the guys that dance around in an effort to convince you to buy a $5.00 foot-long. The top hat was not purchased for the express purposes of advertising at the fireworks stand but was purchased for my nephew to wear during "superhero day" at his daycare. I can't figure out who in my family thinks Uncle Sam is a superhero, but maybe it was my nephew as he is proving to be quite the entrepreneur.

A story about my six-year-old nephew that was relayed to me yesterday unrelated to the sheriff: Around the time of my older nephew's birthday, 6-year-old nephew checked the mail everyday for two weeks for birthday cards and money intended for his brother. My sister only discovered this after she found a ten dollar bill on 6-year-old nephew's bedroom floor and couldn't figure out where he had gotten it. He confessed (I think), and the birthday card intended for older nephew was found under the mattress.

Setting up the fireworks and labeling them was a slow process, but we had a few customers--most nice, and one not so much. The not-so-nice-family was the token "hails from the mountains and are only stopping in Boise because we are on our way back from a 9 day really expensive river excursion" family.


The day wrapped up (for me) with a windstorm that knocked over this rack which I picked up off the ground before the picture was taken because my sister was on her way, and I didn't want to get my ass chewed (notice some contents still on the ground):



And this photo of my mom (which she is obviously happy I am taking) exemplifies the feeling of sitting/walking around a dirt lot with weeds and millions of goatheads--her eyes are red because of allergies--and my nose at this point was full of black-lung dirt boogers. Also this photo is about 2 hours before the stool, which we had positioned in front of the register and that I predicted would break, crumpled and pitched my mom into the dirt, filling her knees and hands with goatheads, making her pee her pants. If you visit the stand and meet her and are reading this, don't tell her I told you.



And I love my mom. I'm not intending to make fun. I would say the same things about myself if they had happened to me.