There’s something about my family and law enforcement. For example, my dad has said that the only times he has ever intentionally sped, he’s gotten a ticket. If he does it accidentally, he doesn’t get pulled over; but if he ever says, “I’m late and I’ll goose it a little bit today” he’s gotten a ticket.

I bring that up because it’s the Fourth of July which means lots of fireworks. And Colorado Springs cancelled the Memorial Park fireworks this year, in addition to banning everything. And by everything, I mean everything.

My brother-in-law has family in Fountain, which is outside city limits and subject to county rules only. The county allows tons of stuff that the city doesn’t. And since Fountain is a suburb of Colorado Springs, it still feels like you’re inside city limits when you’re really not and are subject to different laws.

Anyway, when John, my bro-in-law, invited me over to his house to have a Fourth of July barbeque with his family and to blow up some fireworks, I figured, hey cool! Why not?

In my defense, I will say that I was not positive of everything that illegal to shoot off outside city limits. I knew “sprinklers” and “fountains” and “showers” were all allowed, but not bottle rockets.

John happened to have a few bottle rockets.

Did I say a few? I meant almost 1,000.

So we were launching them all afternoon long. And everyone on the street was. And there I am, shooting ‘em off with everyone else, when what happens?

The sheriff drives past. And of course he stopped, backed up, got out of his car and said, “It your lucky day because I’m only giving you a warning. But hand over the illegal fireworks.”

Long story short, he got about 100 of the bottle rockets, I got a written warning, and then after he left everyone commenced to shooting off fireworks again (although I did not because of the family curse with law enforcement).

And just to show you how it goes…a few hours later, the neighbors began to blast their radio as loud as they could and set off tons of fireworks. John’s father went over to complain about the music, and since there were a lot of drunk people over there, it escalated. Words were exchanged that included insults about some of the other people that had been over at John’s party, which meant that one of the guys over on “our” side went out and was also yelling at “their” people, and it almost came to blows. End result: John’s father called the cops to file a complaint.

Two hours later, a different sheriff’s deputy shows up. Everyone up and down the street is firing off all kinds of illegal fireworks. The cop comes by and people inside the yard I am standing in are firing off bottle rockets. What happens?

Nothing.

Cop just goes and talks to the neighbors, then talks to John’s dad, says he’d prefer if there wasn’t bad blood between the neighbors and that they work everything out without citations if everyone agrees to that, blah blah blah. While he’s talking to John’s dad, John is launching bottle rockets right behind the cop.

The cop just leaves and goes on his way.

But when I launch one….

As I said. There’s some kind of weird curse thing going on. I blame Bush.