Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Good morning crew,

After three(ish) years of martial bliss, the wife and I have finally come across an issue that has passionately divided us along a fundamental and immutable line; fireworks.

Last weekend, after leaving the "Dog Dayz of Summer" beer and sausage fest, the wife and I made a small detour out to Indiana to put in a brief appearance at my goddaughter's graduation party.

Now in Indiana, fireworks are not only legal but sold along practically every mile of highway in big warehouse-like retail locations.

Driving home from the graduation party I could not resist the ubiquitous billboards urging drivers to 'pull in here for a fireworks extravaganza'.

I picked one of the loudest and most outrageous billboards and pulled off the expressway. And extravaganza it was. 20,000 square feet of blackjacks, bottle rockets and roman candles. My eyes boggled!

The wife, however, was trepidatious to the point of disapproval. How could she not be excited by such a display of so much awesome potential fun? When I saw a sign that said absolutely everything in the store was 2-for-1 I couldn't resist.

I swear I was as frugal as humanly possible (under the circumstances), walking out with only one shopping bag full of a modest assortment, but the wife still gave me the silent treatment all the way home. Maybe because I made her pay for the purchase.

But what happened later confirmed her worst fears. I couldn't resist trying out at least something that night, so after we got home I set a bottle out on the back patio and prepared to launch one, little bottle rocket.

While the wife stood at a safe distance holding the little mutt, I applied a match and bolted in her direction. Just my luck, out of an entire gross of bottle rockets I picked a defective one.

The wick sparkled for about 2 seconds before the rocket exploded right in the bottle without launching at all.

The dog gave one high-pitched yelp, leaped out of the wife's arms and bolted for the door. She ran straight to her cage and wouldn't come out for love or treats.

The wife reacted like I had purposefully set fire to the dog's tail and forbade me from lighting so much as one more firecracker in the yard or anywhere near the house.

So now I'm a little stuck. What am I going to do with a shopping bag full of fireworks (without the wife finding out about it)?

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives

***
"General Mills announced that it will phase out all official flavors and colors from its cereals by 2017. The bad news is that now Cheerios and Fruit Loops will look exactly the same." -Seth Meyers

***
"Apple is developing a service called Home Kit that will allow people to operate gadgets like garage openers and thermostats through one app. In related news, please don't tell my parents about this. I can't be explaining this stuff every week." -Jimmy Fallon

***
"According to a new study, American fathers are spending more than twice the amount of time with their children than they used to. Experts say it's due to a sweeping new trend called 'unemployment.'" -Conan O'Brien

***
While visiting Annapolis, a lady tourist noticed several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand.

"What are they doing?" she asked the tour guide.

"Each year," he replied with a grin, "the upperclassmen ask the freshmen how many bricks it took to finish paving this courtyard."

When they were out of earshot of the freshmen, the curious lady asked the guide: "So, what's the answer?"

The guide replied: "One."

*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
As a jet was flying over Arizona on a clear day, the copilot was providing his passengers with a running commentary about landmarks over the PA system.

"Coming up on the right, you can see the Meteor Crater, which is a major tourist attraction in northern Arizona. It was formed when a lump of nickel and iron, roughly 150 feet in diameter and weighing 300,000 tons, struck the earth 50,000 years ago at about 40,000 miles an hour, scattering white-hot debris for miles in every direction. The hole measures nearly a mile across and is 570 feet deep."

The lady sitting next to me exclaimed: "Wow, look! It just missed the highway!"