What Not To Do With Fireworks

Chopstop9 years ago

A while back, a few of my buddies and I spent an afternoon on the lake. On the way home, we stopped by a firework stand and started talking to the guy that ran it. The man looked as homeless as I assume American Idol season 1 runner-up Justin Guarini currently is, and he was absolutely hilarious. He told us all these different stories about how he would get into firework wars with his uncle, wherein they would literally just shoot fireworks at each other all day. Anything to pass the time in rural Missouri, I guess.

The man spoke tales of hair loss and burned down boat houses, and it got us all in the mood to work some fire. He showed us his arsenal of fireworks, and (successfully) tried to convince us to walk away with a $1,000+ bill. This was a “fuck it, life’s short” trip for us — plus we really just wanted to shoot roman candles at each other — so money was no object.

We got back to my buddy’s apartment complex, went outside to the pool, and started popping off M1000s (formerly M80s). The man at the stand told us that once we lit the fuse, they couldn’t be extinguished, not even by water. We tested the theory by lighting them then tossing those suckers in the pool, strapping more together with each throw, splash, BANG and giggling about the increasingly large waves that each legal bomb produced.

We headed back into the apartment to grab some more supplies and found an M1000 that was bent and looked like it probably wouldn’t work. We were about to throw it out before remembering that the man at the fireworks stand told us that we could toss these in the toilet if we “really wanted to [indecipherable].” We instantly run to the bathroom of one of my friend’s roommates who was out of town for the summer, lit it on fire, and tossed it in.

After a second, a little light flashed, a small bang was heard, and a decent amount of water splashed out. We looked at each other, immediately grabbed another, and tossed it in. This time we did not use a defective one, and also neglected to realize there was substantially less water in the toilet after the first bang. We waited for what seemed like a lot longer than the first time, and then BOOM CRACK OHSHITFUCK.

This one shot porcelain out of both sides of the toilet, flung a ton of water all over the bathroom, and produced a pretty substantial bang that the fireworks salesman could probably hear from the room wherein he was bedding his cousin.

We didn’t say anything for a couple seconds and just stared at the now destroyed toilet before falling over laughing, not really comprehending what had just happened. There’s humor to be found in every situation, however potentially hard on the pocketbook it may be.

After pulling ourselves together, we started talking about what we were going to do remedy the situation. The three best options on the table were:

1) Come clean.
2) Claim that one of us had an especially explosive bowel movement.
3) Play dumb and claim it had been like that all along… and use the remaining firecrackers and additional fireworks to complete the demolition.

I think you know which one we went with.

After we were done, we sent an email to the maintenance man. It read as follows:

We need someone to come and fix our toilet in the downstairs bathroom. It was clogged, and as a result of some overenthusiastic plunging, we ended up breaking a small portion of the porcelain off, rendering the entire toilet useless.

A plunger is a perfectly reasonably tool to use on a toilet, and we even used it properly (per the instructions provided by the manufacturer). Therefore, we expect that you will come and replace it as quickly as possible, as it must have been an old or poorly made toilet that already needed to be replaced.

A few days later, the management company came and replaced the toilet, apologizing for the inconvenience..