GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #697: HAPPY 4TH

 Since I dropped two GFs heavy on politics last week, I promised myself that I would stay away from politics this week. Give you all a rest. So there won't be anything political about me wishing you a Happy Fourth.

I've said elsewhere that holidays don't mean much to me anymore. I thought perhaps it was just a matter of me getting old and not caring anymore, but I think I figured it out over the weekend.

When I was a kid, Gramps was all about the Fourth. Since actual fireworks are illegal in my state, and Elmhurst cops will arrest you for setting them off in the town limits, he'd get all those smoke bombs and snakes and shit, and we'd have a grand ol' time. As I got older, I realized that since fireworks were illegal here, then setting fires should be OK. I used to cut the heads off matches and then use the wood part as kindling with some liberal amounts of lighter fluid to create majestic fires as the denouement to our holiday celebrations.

(Although one year I did get my hands on a set of bottle rockets. I forgot how this happened. I was probably drunk at the time. But that was fun, and I didn't get caught.)

(One other aside. One Fourth, when I was a kid, my dad had me. Usually Mom had me for holidays, but this one time Dad picked me up. We went to his parents' place, where they used actual fireworks. It was unusual for me because I'd never seen anything like it before. I find it kind of funny that most people involved in that fireworks display are now law-n-order people.)

But I don't care about the Fourth anymore. Or any holiday except for Christmas, and I care less and less about that one every year, too. My epiphany over the weekend was this: Gramps was the driving force behind holiday celebrations. Grandma only cared about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, but every once in a while she watched Gramps set off the "safe" fireworks that IL endorses. But Gramps died in 2017. Possibly 2016 if I'm right about being from an alternate universe. Regardless, that's when I started noticing my lack of caring about holidays. Without Gramps around, it just wasn't the same. And I think maybe that's the real cause behind my holiday apathy.

I had today off from work, and I'm grateful for that, but in all honesty I couldn't care less about the Fourth of July. If you celebrate, I hope you enjoyed it. I just made hotdogs, got high and watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which felt pretty good. It's good enough for me.