Stars, Stripes, and Sleep Deprivation

I mowed my lawn at 3:30.

No, not 3:30 in the afternoon—though I admit that would make more sense and raise fewer eyebrows from passing joggers and local law enforcement. I mean 3:30 in the morning, under the bleary light of the porch bulb and a moon so faint it looked like it had given up halfway through the night shift.

Why, you ask? Because my neighbor, bless his patriotic little heart, decided that the Fourth of July fireworks should not end on the Fourth, nor the Fifth, but rather should echo well into the Sixth, at precisely 1:00 a.m., when every sleeping soul was beginning to doze into a respectable REM cycle.

It wasn’t your standard-issue backyard light show either. These were the kind of fireworks that make your windows tremble and your dogs seriously reconsider their loyalty.

You know the ones—those booming, searing artillery shells that sound like someone dropped a flaming piano into a dumpster full of sheet metal. Every pop and sizzle seemed to rattle a memory loose from my childhood, including the one where I accidentally lit my uncle’s pant leg on fire with a sparkler.

I lay in bed listening to the last few bottle rockets whistle their way to wherever bad decisions go to die, and I thought, Fine. If you get to celebrate your freedom, I’ll celebrate mine.

So I celebrated by firing up the lawnmower.

Now, if you’ve never mowed your lawn at 3:30 a.m., I can’t honestly recommend it. The dew makes the grass stick to everything—shoes, socks, the mower blade, the vague sense of dignity you once had. And it turns out, every moth in the county thinks your porch light is the hottest nightclub in town.

But something unexpected happened out there in the dark. Somewhere between the back fence and the flower beds, I started to feel better. It was quiet, finally, just the rhythmic whirr of the mower and the soft chirp of crickets wondering what kind of lunatic trims the grass before sunrise.

I even saw a possum lumber by, giving me a look that said, You okay, man? And maybe I wasn’t entirely.

Perhaps I was still a little tired, a little grumpy, and a little petty. But now my lawn is trimmed, my legs are mosquito-bitten, and my temper, a few degrees cooler than it had been when I first stomped out of bed and into my work boots.

Around 3:52, as I rolled the mower back into the garage, I saw the light in my neighbor’s window flip on. I waved, real friendly-like. I’m sure it looked more sinister than sweet at that hour, especially with my bedhead sticking up like I got struck by lightning.

But that was my version of fireworks. And a celebration of lawn justice.

He gets his fun, I get mine. And perhaps next year, he’ll think twice before launching a grand finale at 1:00 a.m., or maybe, I’ll plant a row of hedges and invest in some industrial-grade earplugs.

Either way, I think I won this round.