The explosive spirit of independence

I’m not the patriotic type.

You won’t catch me in red, white, and blue face paint, wrapped only in an American flag and unironically belting “Fortunate Son” in the aisles of the Buc-ee’s super gas station-slash-cultural landmark — soon bringing 1,000 gas pumps to a small town near you.

You’ll never see me interpretive dancing to the newest Keith Urban song about a truck and a beer and a boat and a girl — I leave that to the wearing-camo-in-Target folks.

That said, the 4th brings out a different animal in me.

I found myself in the explosives aisle at the Wal-Mart the other day, wading through the same pre-packaged fireworks, disappointed that none of the pyrotechnics could muster more than a coughing fountain of sparks.

Where are the wall-shakers? The floor rumblers? The scare-your-granny-and-her-little-dog-toos?

Where are the explosions, flames, and little concern for my own well-being? The nation’s 250th is no small feat.

We should celebrate before the whole world nukes itself into extinction.

As a kid, my dad would make a spectacle of it, spending the Saturday prior to July 4th loading the family into the van and hightailing it to South Carolina, where they still sold the boom-booms that shimmied above the treeline.

He’d light a smoke and use the same lighter — the flame still convulsing at the tip — to start the rocket, which hissed and whistled in the gravel driveway at our trailer before fizzling into the night sky, a flare for illegal activity and slightly-drunken good times.

The fact that he died with all 10 fingers came as a surprise to most of us. We’ll see what I end up with. I’m good at mental math.

Now, I’m no monkey-brain, ooh-oohing and aah-aahing at pretty lights and shiny things.

But if you throw on a little “Free Bird” and a Lockheed Martin-level fireworks display, my head will, in fact, spontaneously combust into a mullet, complete with star-spangled baseball sunglasses that hang from the back of my sunburnt ears.

In many ways, I’m as American as they come. Born and raised just up the road from wherever you’re reading this, often with a skateboard in hand and a wild hair up my — well, you get the point.

I don’t like the government. Taco Bell is the most fundamental part of my food pyramid. When I watch “Rocky IV,” it’s like viewing “The Passion of the Christ.”

You know — American American.

There are, of course, different areas that I don’t check the boxes. Oh, let me count the ways we’d watch subscriptions plummet if I aired those out here.

See, America is about non-conformity in the face of banality. I’m not one of those chumps who knows three amendments, 10 commandments, and adheres to none of them.

But that’s the catch, isn’t it?

There’s room for all of the above and a Budweiser, too.

So, get plastered. Lose a finger. Crank some Skynyrd and develop tinnitus. Stand for the anthem or prophesy through the words of Green Day’s “American Idiot.”

Don’t bother me none.

Just remember that 250 only comes once, and we might not see 300.

So, start preparing today for just $39.95. Matches not included.