It's July - Let's Be Total Dickheads

There is something about July that seems to turn people into total dickheads. I'm not sure if it's the humidity or the almost daily rainstorms, but it  has certainly brought a dick head onto every street corner.

This weekend marked the July 4 holiday but I chose not to celebrate the liberation of British people from Americans as I was feeling rather down due to a legal bombshell, so instead engaged in some wallowing in loneliness and self pity.

I wasn't going to go out at all, but eventually wandered the mean streets of River City just before the firework display musing on how I needed to finally cleanse River City out of my system and make a new start. The fireworks, which I expected to be token and derisory were actually rather impressive. Then I saw the obligatory dickhead. I would say he was 18 and he had just lit five sparklers in his baseball hat and was running around yelling, cutting a swathe in the crowd on the sidewalk.

Clearly obligatory dickhead was not aware of the fact that sparklers cause more injuries than any other firework in the country - about 700 every July 4 and they burn at 2000 F. The obligatory dickhead's squeals of excitement quickly turned into yelps of pain but he managed to throw off his hat before the sparklers fried his gray matter - which would have taken about two seconds.

Tragically a guy called Devon Staples from Maine was not so lucky. Staples decided it would be a good idea to place a firework mortar tube on his head and launch off a firework, according to police. He died instantly. His brother, who disputed the head launching account, said there was very little of Devon left.

Another accident in Orange County, Texas could have been avoidable, methinks. A 28-year-old man called Tommie Woodward decided to ignore signs that stated "No swimming - alligators," jumped in a bayou and even yelled "blank the alligators" before the aforementioned creatures had him as a late night snack.

It should not really be necessary to point out that fireworks and alligators are inherently dangerous but maybe that's not as obvious as I thought. I know July sucks folks but please resist the temptation to be another dickhead.