Do you want to have some fun? Roll a lit cherry bomb under a hammock with a sleeping veteran. Yeah, it’s really funny.

If he doesn’t die of a heart attack, you might die. At his hands. And, guess what? He won’t even know who you are.

I flipped out once. I don’t remember why or what happened. Anyone who was there will never forget it. Even on a psych ward, so many were scared so badly that they checked themselves out. Yeah, you can do that. It wasn’t prison, after all.

I wish I could remember. Where I went or thought I was. I wish that a trigger that powerful was something I didn’t forget so quickly. At least, to my knowledge, that never happened again. Except for one night a year.

4 July. Better known as Independence Day, it’s a stupid holiday when people are off work, sit outside in bikinis and speedos, and get wasted on Corona or Bud Light, depending on their region. It’s our country’s birthday. Or that’s the crud they tell stupid little kids in school. That, like bikinis and speedos and beer, are what we call “traditions.”

I just wish I could take a hefty tranquilizer. I mean one with real meat on its bones. Be floating in the air above it all, detached and free. But they’ve tightened down on schedule II drugs to the point that those who need them cannot get them. Like, oh, sure. Restrict an elderly woman from narcotics because she night get addicted. She’s got bone cancer! American medical care is barbaric. Simply evil.

But back to the ward at the hospital. The next morning, in a goals for the day meeting, I’m told that I said my goal for the day was, “I want to learn more about pussy. I want to know everything there is to know about pussy.” I don’t remember it. It was out of character. You can laugh; I give you leave. But I never have. The recovery time was staggering. I couldn’t figure out what happened, and the doctors couldn’t tell me. Or they withheld it. I got sent to a state hospital after that.

But you would be surprised at who you’d find in a hospital psych ward on any given day. There are state prosecutors, high-powered attorneys, and corporate types. Everyone has been there.

Because back then, what was happening? America was involved in two wars. Thousands of our troops had died. George Bush was stumbling with his tongue the way Gerry Ford used to do without using anything. Four years after the WTC attacks, we were all frightened, and everyone had their breaking point. They sought a bit of rest and help. There’s nothing wrong with that and everything right with it. I wish more people did this when they felt like they were too close to the edge.

But I had been the guilty one that night for taking peace from them. I was told that I screamed for my sergeant and threatened to “kill them all,” whoever that meant. Security responds like lightning when this dumb stuff happens. They bracket you, bind you, stop to let an intrepid nurse put a needle in your hip ( I don’t know why they call it that. They take a needle for elephants and shoot your butt cheek full of something. Must have been mild because in that little room, the kind that used to have pads on the walls, I remember coming back to Earth throwing a mattress around like a kid’s dodge ball.

Now, vets don’t need to have been in a theater of war. And they can still have enough triggers to call for their sergeant for reasons they’ll never remember and that nobody else can see. Those who engage in the simplest black-op, those who had a history before they enlisted, and more….can be just as bad as a veteran who spent years in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, that one place on Earth where nothing happens but nightmares, and Vietnam….you really think they like fireworks? Because even if a few are okay with them, there are more who aren’t. And the closer they are to him or her, the worse they react. Their bladders empty in their pants, and they don’t even know it. They hit the dirt for cover. Or worse.

If they stay with it, they’ll at least hope that whoever just lit that cherry bomb blew all his fingers off.

Every year that happens: someone gets to the ER blinded or with hands mangled. Burned, deafened in one ear. Howling in pain, crying like babies. Some have to be taken straight to the morgue. Not often, but it has happened.

And even planned, major fireworks shows have mishaps. A barge full of mortars and black powder blows up. A fire breaks out. Whatever.

Then there are those who just can’t resist shooting firearms. Need I say more?

How is all of this a celebration? Don’t veterans get dumped on enough without this unnecessary crud?

We don’t celebrate Independence Day. We cook on grills (mostly, this year, I suspect, hot dogs, because a pound of ground beef will cost you a gold ingot). We stare at babes in bikinis at the beach. And hey, ever see an old man in a speedo standing at the grill, flipping steaks? If you get the chance, do watch. There’s a better than even chance that something wonderful will happen that will make this grotesque activity worth your while.

Hey. Idea: Throw a firecracker at him.

It’s likely that next year, we will see Trump back in the Oval Office. So I hope that you enjoyed scaring the pee pee out of veterans yesterday. Next year could see cherry bombs exchanged for frags.

Just saying.

And to all those disgusting people who said, “Donald Trump can molest me anytime” or whatever slogan that was, you’re too old. What he really wants is early adolescents. And some KFC.

This is the part where I usually send you off with a hopeful saying and remind you to keep your faith.

So look at the bright side, keep the faith, and screw the vets. While you’re at it, count the elderly, the chronically ill, and all those sick in heart and mind.

Business as usual. Let em die; God will sort them out.

Right?

Those Roman candles look like flares to me. Nothing more.