The time I nearly blew my nuts off

With Independence Day (in the US) happening this weekend I lit my share of fireworks, along with most of my neighbors, in my little town that goes nuts with them every year. I’ve been thinking about a time (a long time ago) when I knocked myself unconsious and almost lost my right hand doing dumb things with fireworks.

Preface: DO NOT do anything I mention in this post. There is absolutely no reason to do any of the totally hypothetical things I mention here. All of this is “fictional” and just a story. You are now not allowed to hold me responsible for anything.

Anyway, this is all true.

But, we need to travel back in time. All the way to the end of my elementary and middle school years. Let’s go back to the 1900’s.

When I was in my “tween” years I lived in Modesto, California. We had a Modesto address, but it was more Ceres than it was Modesto. For anyone that knows the area, right off Crows Landing and Hatch Rd.. It is a fun neighborhood of high crime, drugs, and doing hoodrat shit and I was all up in doing hoodrat shit at 10 years old.

In the Bay Area (the area in and around San Fransisco) fireworks are illegal. But, in the valley (the central valley that runs north to south in Californa between the Coastal Ranges and the Sierra Nevada Mountains) they are legal except anything that shoots in the air. So, nothing fun. But, you can make them fun if you know how. Modesto (and the valley as it will be called from now on) is farm country. In fact, its almost nothing but farms in every direction for miles and miles. When you walked out of our neighborhood, you walk along a big farm canal, and then get to a collection of stores.

Once I crashed a mini motorcycle into that canal when I was 11. Burned the shit out of my left leg, which I still have a scar. But, that’s a story for a different time.

Every year a fireworks stand would open right before you would get to the stores a week before Independence Day. The people running the stand did not care who wanted to buy them and would sell to anyone with cash. So, my friends and I would go down there all the time during that week and buy “legal” fireworks. Well, we only bought a single type of firework. At the time they were called “Piccolo Pete’s”. They might still be called that. A “Piccolo Pete” is a small tube about 6 inches long and 1/2 inch in diameter. When lit it produces a small shower of sparks and a piercing whistling noise. It lasts about 30 seconds. Boring.

But, if you take the plastic base off of it, lay it down on the street, and hammer the shit out of it until its semi-flat, it becomes a small bomb. I guess more like a M-80 or a large firecracker. Light it, run away, watch it explode. As a kid it was fun because we would blow up a bunch of random shit, mailboxes, and harass people with loud explosions. You can make it even louder if you hammer it flat, then duct tape it tight. Even better if you hammer two of them flat, then duct tape them together. Now we are getting into pipe bomb territory.

Just make sure you don’t cause a spark while hammering…

For all that is holy, people please don’t do this.

Alright, let’s jump forward in time. Nothing bad happens to me as a child and I grow up with all my fingers. We are fast forwarding to the early 2000’s. I’m married, one kid and another on the way. I have moved back to the valley (this time Merced) after my employer offered me a promotion to manage my first distribution warehouse. We live in a little house between Q and 9th. People who know Merced know what’s up in that neighborhood. It is Independence Day week and I got a hankerin’ for making Piccolo Pete pipe bombs. Now I can buy them legally and no one can stop me.

I buy two 6-packs and make some single firecrackers, annoying the neighbors and the homeless folks sleeping in the alley behind our house. Then I get the galaxy brain idea that I’m gonna go all-in and make 3-pack bombs. I’m going to duct tape three together and then drop them into a metal trash can. I plan on causing the Air Force to scramble jets out of Travis AFB to stop a terrorist attack. I get everything ready and go into the backyard to do this.

Now, remember I’ve been lighting small versions of this off all week. My wife, you is annoyed as hell, doesn’t bat an eye at an explosion coming from somewhere around the house. She knows I’m doing dumb shit.

I go in the back and get everything ready. When I light the fuse it goes out right before it gets to the firework. This is where I should have stopped. Basic firework safety is you don’t re-light a fuse. You can figure out why. Not me though. I have a mini-pipe bomb and I want to make all my neighbors think its 1989 all over again (reference to the 1989 San Fransisco earthquake). So, I’m going to light it right over the trash can. I’m going to light and drop. That should be enough time for me to cover my ears and back up 3 steps… Right? I mean, the fuse definitely burns down into the firework. It doesn’t just light right away, right?!

I couldn’t be more wrong. Maybe it had something to do with hammering a firework flat.

I light and drop. The most luck I’ve ever had in my entire life is that it dropped far enough that it was actually inside the trash can. If it went off any earlier it would have either destroyed my hand or blew my nuts clean off as it hit waist level. The explosion was big. Real big. In fact it was so big I woke up flat on my back, my ears ringing, and in haze as I stumble back to my feet. The trash can is destroyed. I have soot on my clothes. I have no idea how long I was unconsious. I quickly check my hands and my balls. All is safe.

I get up and stumble into the house, laughing. My wife comes to me and I can’t hear anything except ringing. It stays like this for a full 24 hours. I tell her, while laughing uncontrollably, what happened in the backyard. I am still not forgiven, now over 20 years later.

Did I learn my lesson? Absolutely not. I lit off the rest of what I have and I still do it occasionally as a gag.

Don’t do this folks.

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