So last night we had a shindig of sorts. People came over, we ate, we drank, we blew shit up. Typical Haysvillian activities for the 4th of July. I commandeered my neighbor that recently moved out's driveway for the chairs and grille. Not only does my driveway/yard have a tree covering it, making half the stuff we were shooting off a fire hazard from hell, but we couldn't get the lawn mower to start and because my husband works for free, I couldn't pay someone to come and do it. (He lets his boss walk all over him with promises of how amazing the business is going to be yet hasn't got a paycheck in 3 weeks.) We were paying the next door neighbor 20 bucks to do it as needed, but it seemed like we would pay him, he would mow his and ours would wait another week. So whatever. Its not the worst its ever been. Even if the mower was running, hub works ALL the time and I have Lilah. (You will understand why I am justifying this in a moment.)

Back to last night, I overdrafted my bank account to buy lots of the most baby friendly fireworks I could find. Fountains and sparklers and roman candles and mini mortars. It kicked ass. The only FIRECRACKERS (typical noisy as hell and leaves a bigass mess) were this little roll Dom bought, so no worries. I had my child's ears, and the ears of the few neighbors I had in mind the whole evening. The big mortars may have been much, but I made sure people gave me warning to cover that Bug's ears some more. (I already had earplugs in and a headband around the head to hole em in.) The night progressed and more people came with more fireworks, specifically this GINORMO M-4000. I made them take it further down the street because of little ears and I really don't like them either, and they did. Party continued; good night overall.

I sleep late and Hub does his weekend thing with Lilah. I officially get up around 1 and go sit on the couch and talk to Hub a bit about all the leftovers and the cleanup process. We had got most of the big stuff picked up and put into the trashcan already, but we had a bit more to do. Of course, the heat of the day in Kansas is NOT the best time to do this. I get a knock on the door and its my neighbor. Not the flaky one with the riding lawnmower, not the one that moved out, not the creepy guy across the street with the tiny dog and not the creepier guy down the street. Its Mr. ElCamino. He starts in asking if we had a party, so I'm like "Yah a few friends came over." Then he goes on this rant about his car and his hood and how we tried to blow it up, telling me that he doesn't come blow my yard up, why didn't we shoot fireworks in front of our house. Oh, and every other word is shit or damn. I am cool at first, "Oh yeah super sorry about that, swear we weren't trying to blow your car up, i apologize," even tho hes interrupting me every second about "What would you have done if my car had caught on fire?" but then it goes too far. He's like "I'm going to loan you my broom, its in the back of my car, and you can get out here and clean up after yourselves." plus shit/damn interjections. I am not a shitty neighbor that celebrates the fourth and LEAVES all my shit in the street. My mother trained me better than this. I tell him "Oh yeah? Well we got a lot of it last night already, you would have been super pissed if you saw all that!" and again with the interrupting and the shit/damn and something along the lines of, "Get to work", mind you all of this is ON MY FRONT PORCH. If you need to have words with someone and you go to their house to do it, the least you can do is not be an ass, because frankly, they could just slam the door in your face and let you sweep under your own damn car. I decided not to be an ass, mostly because this guy probably owns a lot of shotguns.

Hub gets his shoes on and goes outside. I decide its a good idea to be spiteful to wrap that Bug on me and go outside too. "Woe is me, child in tote, slaving away in the sun," kind of guild trip is what I'm aiming for. The neighbor with the tiny dog comes home and Mr. ElCamino goes and talks smack on me to him about my debris as my hub is sweeping like the mouse he is. The asphalt is hot and I realize I have no clue where my flipflops are. As I'm standing in the shade with my child and the dustpan waiting on hub to sweep a pile, Mr. ElCamino, still standing in Chihuahua guy's yard, states "I'm not trying to be a hardass or anything." This, coming from the man who just stood in my front door cussing me out, pushes me over the edge. I go off in a blur something along the lines of, "You sure are doing a good job of it tho," and then general ranting about how we didn't try to blow up his car, it wasn't me that bought the damn thing, it was lit like 10 feet away from his car, there were cars and trees over my driveway, blah blah blah. Troy tells me to go inside, and I tell him that I will do no such thing. ElCamino goes on about how i should "listen to my husband" and then after some more banter about how hes the one coming up to my fucking house and cussing me out about something that was going to get done ANYWAY when he could have just not been an ass about it and casually brought it up allowing me to explain the situation instead of approaching it the way he did, he tells me that I'm cussing more (I'm using stronger words, yes, but not more) and then randomly goes on about "Mow your yard." I get even more pissed and tears are flowing and I'm yelling now. "Oh, ok, why don't you let me borrow your lawn mower too because mine doesn't work. And you can watch my kid for me because my husband works all day and I can't get out and fucking mow even if I wanted to because I'm taking care of my CHILD," and he comes back like "Well... deal with it." which is such a 3 year old response, to which I reply "Yeah I am, why don't you do the same about your car. Its the fucking fourth of July in HAYSVILLE; you should be used to this shit by now." Hub comes over and wants me to go inside and stop yelling at the neighbor across the street, to which I reply "Oh yeah, ok, I'll just let someone cuss me out on my front porch and sit around and watch me sweep his grass clippings in the heat of the day and talk smack to someone else while I'm standing 10 feet away. Sorry, this is bullshit and that's not my style, that's you. Why don't you man up about something for a change? You do it at work, you do it with your family and you are doing it now," and I storm inside.

I know that hub talked to ElCamino afterward, but I'm not sure about what. He's too busy being a mouse to talk to me right now.

I'm going to plaster this around on peoples doors before next year...

Asshats.