This weekend marks not only 4^th of July, but also the last day of little league.  I know, I know … there’s nothing more American than baseball and the 4^th of July, and for me, celebrating them on the same day is like my two favorite things at once, getting a root canal and a pap smear performed by a team of ASC certified mechanics from the QuickLube.  YAY! America!

All of the fun begins today with the bunting and the flagging and the lighting.  That may sound a bit excessive, but after all, it is Wisteria Lane and we hold ourselves to a very high standard when it comes to holiday lawn décor.  I, myself, am more of a minimalist in this regard and only plan to put out 15 – 20 flags and/or flag related products.  First of all there’s the red, white, and blue magnetic mailbox koozie and the small flags for all of the flowerpots that must be installed.  Then, the big bunting for above the garage and the little United States-figure lights for the gazebo must go up.  In previous years, there was also the Uncle Sam plywood cutout, but Sam lost his head to a microburst about a year ago, may he rest in pieces.

As I said before, I’m a minimalist.  My across-the-street neighbor, The Insurance Agent plants medium size flags every two feet around the entire perimeter of her lawn.  Each year she goes out with a twenty-four inch block of wood, a screwdriver, a hammer, and about 200 flags.  She then proceeds to measure, drive that screwdriver into the ground with the hammer and then painstakingly plant each flag.  You can hear her humming America The Beautiful from across the street. 

Last year, a local real estate agency thought they would get in on the holiday action since a lot of folks were talking about moving due to our bankrupt golf course.  In a true act of patriotism and in the middle of the night, the husband/wife duo planted their own flags in our yards, all of them attached to big white signs advertising their company.  The Insurance Agent lost her shit and ran up and down the street grabbing all the flags and signs and then drove them all over to the real estate agents' house and threw them out in their driveway with this message scrawled on the back of one of the promo signs:  We don’t want this trashy shit on our street.  

Once all the decorating is done, then the FIREWORKS shopping begins.  Within a 3-mile radius there are at least a dozen warehouses, tents, shop fronts, and vendors all ready to sell each of us hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of explosives.  Fireworks were illegal when I grew up and the most exotic thing I’d ever seen was a string of Black Cat firecrackers.  I never ever dreamed that one could actually perform an Epcot Center Spectacle of Lights from the back yard tree house.  Let me just say this, Missourians really know their fireworks.  I’ve been in line behind people who spent over five hundred dollars on their fireworks display, leaving me feeling like a second-class citizen at checkout when my sparkler tally is $2.99.  If the state of Missouri goes bankrupt, you know whom to blame.

Before we can get to the fireworks, we have to finish up the ball season and I, for one, am happy to see it go.  I love watching the kids play sports, but it’s been hotter than forty hells out here this year and I have reached critical mass for the other parents.  Surgeon Dad, for instance … I know you aren’t on call every night of the week so I really don’t understand why you have to wear scrubs to the field for every game.  We all know you’re a doctor and we love you, but seriously, if you were called out for an emergency surgery, would you really perform it in dust-covered scrubs with a nacho stain on the front?  I don’t think so.  Oh, and then there’s Blackberry Mom … I swear sitting in front of you is like being trapped inside that typing pool tap dancing scene from Thoroughly Modern Millie.  All I can hear is your acrylic nails tap, tap, tapping on the phone.  What the hell are you doing back there, writing your version of the great American novel, Confessions of a Shopaholic II?  If you’re not writing a book, you must be texting every man, woman, and child in the four-state area, leaving me to wonder if acrylic nails are actually made of titanium.

The little league season will end with much ado and a hotdog dinner put on by the fire department.  It’s a real community get together with all the trimmings and a local bluegrass band.  Fortunately, the bluegrass band is made of mostly local kids who like their Ernest Tubb with a little pseudo-punk, which culminates in an eerily pleasant sounding banjo-fied Greenday experience.  I can dig it and it goes great with mixed pork products.

We have about an hour to kill between the ballpark and the Annual “SPOON” Pool Party.  The Spoon is my other across-the-street neighbor, the one who likes to stir the pot.  Supposedly, there was going to be a boycott of her party this year, as she has been rather persistent in her stirring.  For one thing, she got Crazy Mary all bent out of shape over Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend, The Cop, fishing in the pond behind her house.  So she gets Crazy Mary on the scene and she starts watching them with binoculars.  Then Crazy Mary tells The Normal One who then tells me and I do what a good friend would do and tell Jenny McCarthy not to be screwing in the canoe because Crazy Mary is probably filming it to put on the youtubes.  Well, it all got blown out of proportion and everybody got mad at everybody even though Jenny didn’t get any ass out there.  Bitches.

I will predict, right now, that the boycott is off and that everyone will show up at The Spoon’s with a covered dish and a smile.  I will also have a pitcher of Kamikaze’s and a straw.  We’ll laugh and joke and drink and smoke and have a glass of wine … or something like that (I can’t remember all the lyrics – whatever).  Then the fireworks will commence and our enormous Lab, Gracey, will freak out and piss all over my newly cleaned carpets.

God Bless America!!!

And a safe and happy Independence Day to you and yours!!!