Adults vs kids morons

[sinanju]

snippy and I just walked back in the door from watching fireworks in the park behind our house. We discovered last year that a couple of groups of people always set off a boatload of fireworks there on the 4th. So this year we took a beach chair for her and we sat and watched. It's a large park with a softball field. One group set up on the infield with a big metal launching plate. Another was doing their fireworks launching from the grass in the middle of the park. Both groups did about half n' half fountains of fire and things that flew (and mostly but always exploded).

Another group down in a far corner of the park--a bunch of teenagers, or maybe college age kids--were doing some fireworks too. But mostly they were firing roman candles at one another and running around like idiots. They were annoying, but only annoying. The real grudge is reserved for this bunch of slack-jawed morons:

An elementary school abuts the park. In fact, the school playground is park of the park. There's a blacktop area adjacent to a sawdust filled section with swings and a slide and whatnot. While we're all watching the fireworks there's a bang! from behind Snippy and I and suddenly flickering light. I turned around to see flames burning merrily on the blacktop. Waist high and a couple of feet around, the fire was burning briskly.

My first thought was that something had malfunctioned and was simply burning. No. Then I wondered if the idiots had made and used some kind of molotov cocktail. No. They threw a firecracker into the sewer grating where runoff from the blacktop enters the storm drain. That's what was burning.

There was an immediate chorus of calls from all quarters of the park to put the fire out now. The teenage punks stood around doing nothing. The chorus grew louder. The punks morons started replying, saying that it was "in the sewer." There were calls to stomp it out, or smother it with a blanket, or something.

The punks morons assholes began retreating. One yelled out that it was in the sewer and "I'm not going to get my shoes dirty." I began to wish I had a searchlight and my digital camera handy. I got up and approached, wondering what--if anything--I could do to put the fire out.

Yep, the flames were flickering up from beneath the grating. Oh goody. About the time I got there, someone from one of the other groups arrived with a bucket of water. He poured this on the fire, which diminished it but didn't put it out. Then someone else--whether from the same group or another, I don't know--arrived with a fire extinguisher. That did the trick, though it took a considerable application of foam.

So. On the one hand, assholes who throw firecrackers into sewer grates and then run away when their stupidity is revealed to the world. On the other hand, responsible revelers who are prepared for problems with water buckets and fire extinguishers. The former are why we have nanny-state laws against most fireworks; the latter are the sort of people who make the world worth living in.