I keep fireworks in my underwear drawer.

Oddly enough, Independence Day is one of the most memorable holidays for me. EM and I were born in Sacramento, where it is legal to buy and use fireworks because 1. NorCal is not made of specifically flammable plants, and 2. if things get out of hand, people have the good common sense to put the fire out with water, as opposed to attacking it with axes like they do here in SoCal.

"Stupid 'no-hose' budget cuts."

This is probably why I held on to my ex-boyfriend's gifted bottle rockets for as long as I did.

My ex gave them to me as part of either a Christmas or Birthday present a couple years ago because he shared in my moderately destructive leanings, and I figured that I would hold on to them for us to light together... you know, saved for something special. I stuck them in the safest place that I knew: my underwear drawer.

Fast forward a year to July of '09, when I was hopelessly smitten with TOL. For our 4th of July celebration last year, a group of us headed over to the coast to see the *big* explosions over the beach, and then on our way back to inland Los Angeles I remembered...

I have firepower in my skivvies drawer!

TOL and EM's boyfriend made with the matches and we lit said bottle rockets off in the street outside. It was a glorious and unsafe combination of alcohol, explosives and asshole-neighbor's-car-directionality. We made it out alive and unscathed. The rest of my bottle rockets were abandoned in favor of hour-long makeouts with TOL, who attracted my attention much more effectively than the smell of gunpowder.

This year, again, they were discovered nestled in the back of my underwear drawer, mysteriously wrapped in a pair of stockings.

"EM's boyfriend!" I called across the apartment. "Do you have any interest in possessing some slightly illegal fireworks that I've been stashing in my underwear drawer?"

"Uh. Yes?"

"Good. I don't know how old they are, really, and I'm afraid they'll suddenly and inexplicably go off and light my lingerie on fire. Also, I think one of them leaked. How do I get gunpowder out of stockings? Can I just wash them? Am I in danger of having them explode?"

"No," EM's boyfriend said, eyeing me with that look.

I handed them off and nursed my nostalgia for previous Independence Days, when, this very 4th of July weekend, I uncovered yet another bottle rocket while cleaning out my drawers of drawers. I thought about lighting it off, I thought about giving it to EM's boyfriend, I even thought about tossing it, but then my girly-emotion-centers stopped me. I suddenly remembered my childhood 4th of July block parties with root beer floats and Roman Candles and sparklers, I remembered a 4th of July at Mount Rushmore on an epic month-long camping trip with my parents, I remembered my adorable ex giving me the stash of flammable projectiles and I remembered TOL laughing at me when I lit them off in the street.

No. I decided. I'm going to save this for something special.