Today, a paramedic at a local fire station removed my stitches for free. He used a scalpel, a little clamp, some numbing medicine and gauze. He did it in nine minutes (including the drive). The hospital wanted $80 and they would have made me wait. The lesson here: firemen are the only people on planet earth who wear a uniform and are not, to some degree or another, hated. No one ever runs around saying things like, “Damn firemen, always running around and saving all those lives. Bastards.”
Have you ever seen a family of six run, duck and cover because a misguided firework is shooting fire-coated projectiles at them? I have. And it’s every bit as funny as it sounds (chill out—no one was hurt).
Give four full-grown men $100 worth of fireworks and watch them quickly turn into four young boys. I swear, on the Fourth, I was very close to trading in my beer for a soda-pop.
The guy at the pizza shop next door just saw the bandage around my hand and made the obligatory masturbation joke. Just a few more days of gauze, God. Please, provide me with the strength to refrain from murdering these unoriginal people. On second thought…
Oh yeah, gauze related humor. Every time I mentioned that I had to buy gauze I would hear, “shut your gauze damn mouth” or something to that degree. Thought you’d want to know.
Fourth of July wrap up: Barbecues… check. Hanging with old friends… check. Heavy drinking… check. Fireworks on the beach… check. Accidental attempted murder of a family of tourists… check. Damn, I forgot to do laundry.