Adventures with Sparklers

On  this 4th of July I reminisce of a time when my mother, father, friend and myself were in my parent's kitchen. And the family dog -a very important element in this story.

So, my father emerges from the basement with a box of sparklers he had found, purchase date estimated to have been circa 1962. Ok maybe they weren't "that" old, but they had to be a good 4-6 years old.

Dad walks over to the kitchen sink and retrieves a match. He is certain that a sparkler from this box won't light, but sometimes, you just have to test a theory. I was standing off to his side and my friend and my mother were sitting at the table in front of him opposite the sink. The dog, black haired labrador, was at his feet looking up appearing to be thinking my dad was a moron, or just annoyed.

Dad held about 2-3 lit matches under the sparker, not facing the sink mind you, but all of us instead, and was about to proclaim his accuracy when..... fpfpf, zzzzzz, the sparkler lit. The dog arose and this was when the action commenced.

So here stands dad, surprised that the ancient sparker actually lit and staring at it, my mother yelling at my father for lighting a sparkler indoors and my friend and I hurriedly patting out the embers of the sparkler which were falling on the startled and bewildered dog. It was hard to pat the dog as my eyes were filling with tears from laughter. Dad never moved. The dog never moved. All the action continued for the minute of sparkler excitement. At the end dad states, "Eh, guess they do still work" and my friend and I were short of breath from laughing. Mom just shook her head in smiling disapproval, knowing that this was her husband, for better or worse, and the dog........ just laid back were he was.

Lesson - don't light sparklers indoors. At least not around flammable pets anyway :-)