You May Be Hungover This Morning But At Least You Aren't Dead From Lighting A Firework Off The Top Of Your Head

CALAIS, Maine (AP) — A 22-year-old man who was drinking and celebrating the Fourth of July tried to launch a firework off the top of his head, killing him instantly, authorities said Sunday. Devon Staples and his friends had been drinking and setting off fireworks Saturday night in the backyard of a friend’s home in eastern Maine, said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

Staples, 22, of Calais, a small city on the Canadian border, placed a reloadable fireworks mortar tube on his head and told his friends he was going to light it, McCausland said. But his friends urged him to stop. “Apparently, he thought that was a great idea,” McCausland said. “His friends they thought dissuaded him from doing it, and the next thing they knew, he ignited the fireworks and he was killed instantly.”

Staples’s brother Cody told the Daily News of New York that he was a few feet away when his brother lit the firework and was the first to come to his side after it exploded. “There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there,” said 25-year-old Cody Staples, who called it an accident.

“Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh,” he said. Staples’ death is the first fireworks fatality in Maine since the state legalized fireworks on Jan. 1, 2012, authorities said.

All about adjusted goals in life. If you thought you would be at work right now feeling fresh and well rested after a long weekend of drinking, eating, and sun, well you probably aren’t the smartest person out there. BUT, you also are still technically a person out there, you aren’t dead, so you’ve got that going for you, which is nice.

Can we have a teachable moment from this? Of course we can but it’s not what you think it is. I think we can all agree “don’t light fireworks off the top of your head” is sort of one of those “no shit” things. You also shouldn’t jump in front of speeding traffic on the highway, or play russian roulette with a loaded gun. If we need to start “teaching” people not to light explosives on the top of their head then we’re in trouble as a society. Instead this teachable moment is about fireworks in general. They fucking suck. Nothing is more overrated than Fireworks. Every year we hit the 4th and I watch fireworks and every year I think the same thing, that was it? So the lesson here is not don’t light fireworks directly next to your brain (this is still a lesson everyone should remember), it’s don’t light fireworks in general because they are NEVER as cool as you think they will be, ever, and they’re especially not as cool as having fingers and being alive because at the end of the day those two things are pretty fucking sweet.