Serious nostalgia alert: Remember the time the Consumer Product Safety Commission murdered a bunch of mannequins in cold blood on the National Mall? The year was 1996. Cell phones couldn't play fruit-related mobile games yet. And government wasn't afraid to show you all the ways fireworks could kill you in the bestest possible fashion. It was even
on C-SPAN!
The Washington Post has some lovely clips. We really don't get fun like this anymore. I mean sure, the government is rounding up patriots and putting them in FEMA internment camps, I guess that's something, but there are mannequins out there that have gone unexploded for years.
For those patriots among us still planning a do-it-yourself version of the ol' July shock and awe (we do not have firework stands in my neck of the woods anymore, what with the common side effect of lighting whole hillsides on fire), here are some tips. Do not let government agents sneak up behind you and light your pants on fire. Do not let government agents give your toddlers lit sparklers while yelling "sparkler fight!" If a government agent comes into your home and offers you a nice slice of pie with a lit fuse coming out the top of it, politely decline and head for another room.
We need more of this. I'm serious. They should do it during those horrific C-SPAN segments where Real Americans call in with their concerns about mood altering drugs in contrails, or Obama's secret plan to import small brown children and something something dictatorship. "We're sorry you had to listen to that, America," the nice host could say afterwards. "To make it up to you, here's the Senate sergeant-at-arms blowing the head off a mannequin with a cherry bomb."
Also, my fellow patriots, please do not blow yourself up this weekend. Keep our taxes low by not having to pay for you to get airlifted to the regional trauma center 10 minutes after saying, "Now watch this one."