I may have broken my toe this morning (I whacked it against something, and it still aches, several hours later, but you have to consider that I can't experience any torso pain without thinking it's a heart attack), but that's not what I'm going to write about. Instead, it's about fireworks.

Last night was the third night in the last five that we were treated to fireworks, but it was by far the best of the lot. Some people may have been too impatient to wait, or maybe they needed to test out their matches or punks, and began setting off some on Saturday, but they all saved the best for last. The Wednesday night show was an impressive pissing contest, with many of my neighbors competing.

The best part, by far, was that all we could see were the illegal ones. When I was growing up we had "safe and sane" fireworks that, by today's standards, would land your ass in jail quicker than having a joint. Those were very mild compared to what would be set off at the local park, but even those are too much now. We used to have pinwheels and little Roman Candles that spat forth colored balls of fire, but if it's even legal to have anything this year I'm sure it's nothing that anyone would really enjoy. Last time I checked, the best you could have were sparklers.

Even at Chinese New Year's, the people who invented fireworks, for God's sake, you aren't permitted anything more than those pop rock things.

Still, many of my neighbors risked life and limb and probably traveled to Indian Reservations, Mexico, or bordering states to secure a hefty amount of what can only be described as packaged awesomeness. I have a hunch some of these may have been equal to the fireworks from the park of my youth, but since I could only see the really high-flying ones, maybe back yards were filled with less impressive celebrations of our nation's birth.

While the neighbors were busy outdoing each other (about five or six in the neighborhood), more of us were in the street applauding the better displays. Then, it all came to a halt as the imposing presence of a fire truck crawled down the street. They stopped a few doors down, and I could see a conversation going on between some guy safely inside his truck and a very guilty neighbor, one with a decidedly  extravagant display. After a bit of talk, the truck moved on, and one by one, the sky fell dark.

It grew so calm, Minardi poked his nose out from his hiding place under my bed.

In the grand tradition of scofflaws,  however, some fifteen minutes later the skies erupted. Everyone who was warned or caught set off everything they had left, and it was easily the best display of fireworks I've seen, ever. It was all around. The missiles screeched and exploded, the individual displays melted together, and it was like being in the middle of a snow globe of fiery, loud goodness.

Dude, it rocked!

Then, as quickly as it erupted, all was quiet and still. Everyone must have shot their wads and before the fire or police could show back up, my neighborhood was as peaceful as a Ghandi convention. If there even is such a thing.