It’s about time. Warm weather has finally arrived and spring is in the air. That said, it was finally time for my annual “first clean” of the spring. As soon as the weather permits, I vacuum, Armorall, and completely clean my entire car.
This year it was two-fold. Last winter, I felt it would be safer to drive a vehicle with four-wheel drive and purchased a Trailblazer. Early this week I was in the middle of vacuuming my Blazer when my sister walked by behind me, and scared me half to death. She hollered at me to pull up my shorts. I almost had a heart attack, I did not hear her pull up.
After I was finished with all the cleaning, I walked inside to find my sister and father playing Scrabble. She says, “I hope the cop drives by while you’re vacuuming next time. That way you won’t forget to pull your pants up.”
My dad chimed in, “He’s not afraid of cops. He used to shoot bottle rockets at cop cars,” bursting into laughter as he spoke. It was at this point I told him not to let me forget to write about it in my column. Now is the perfect time to introduce the story of how I shot a bottle rocket at the town police car.
One summer day, when I was around the ripe age of 8 or 10, my brother got his hands on some bottle rockets. How he did so, I have little idea, except that they may have come from my grandpa. Back to the bottle rockets. My brother was shooting them off in the back yard before he came inside to look for something.
While he was inside he told me his plan. He was looking for an old “airsoft gun” (basically a low-powered bb gun) to shoot bottle rockets. After he found what he was looking for, he went out on the front porch. To this day I don’t know why he went on the front porch to do this, but he did.
Standing on the front porch he hands me the airsoft gun, which was broken, so all that was there was a barrel-like object that did not even resemble a gun. After he handed me the barrel, he put a bottle rocket in the end and told me to aim, “over there.’ Well, over there was the street, and just as the rocket took off, the police car rounded the corner.
Bam! Direct hit. The rocket whizzed into the windshield of the cop car, exploding on impact. The next thing, he was on our doorstep. I was quick too. I went inside the house and left Nathan to deal with the law.
If memory serves correct, I believe it was Scott, my neighbor, who was the victim of our mischief. I was never happier to have him as our neighbor than that day, because I’m not sure how he would have reacted to a stranger shooting his car with a firework. I remember my brother getting a long talking to, but I was the lucky one. I got away scot-free.
Thought for the day: watch your aim, and handle fireworks with care!