I Smell A Winner

Tonight is New Year's Eve, which means it is a night filled with possibilities, crowds and over-priced drinks. If you have read any of my previous posts about this holiday than you know my policy is to avoid almost all New Year's Eve celebrations for the most part. The problem for New Year's is that it has become a holiday which demands people have fun, which is the quickest way to assure that no one has a good time. There are some people out there who contend that the holiday was so over-rated in the past that it has now become under-rated but I happen to think that you never get a second chance to make a first impression and since my first "going out for New Year's" experience involved paying $20 to go into a bar where everyone was asshole to elbow, paying $10 for every beer which would only cost $4 just 23 hours earlier and then having some 13 year-old puke on the train ride home, I prefer to flip my calendar from the peace of my own living room. But even though it would take a tremendous change of heart for me to head into the city tonight that doesn't mean the City of Boston is going down without a fight in its efforts to woo revelers whose minds may not be quite so made up. This year's edition of First Night is supposed to be one of the grandest of all time. A few short months ago the company in charge of Boston's New Year's party ran into money trouble and said the show would not go on. Well, outgoing Mayor Tom Menino wasn't about to let that happen, pulled in more than a few favors and suddenly the event is bigger than ever. Reportedly there will be all sorts of things for people of all ages and even two separate firework shows, one early in the evening for the kids and one at midnight for the adult. I think one is more than enough.

I know this post is quickly making me sound like a party pooper but I have never understood the appeal of fireworks. Even as a kid I didn't see any good reason to gather in a field, fight for a spot before the show and then wait around for a solid 45 minutes when the firework display itself was going to last about 10 minutes. Fireworks are simply one of those things which seems like a really good idea when you are leading up to it but then after about 2 minutes all I can think is, "Ok, what else ya got?" I mean, how many different directions and colors can you have sparks fly through the air before it becomes redundant? Perhaps I would be more enthusiastic if the fireworks were coordinated to the music but most of the time if an explosion happens at the same time as a note of the song it has to be considered a happy accident. Also, by now I would have thought we would be further along with out firework technology but it is still the same shapes we've had for years. Give me something other than circles and star and maybe I will come out to your show. And keep in mind these are my feelings on this issue in July, when the show is happening in 70 degree weather - when you factor in that tonight's temperatures are expected to hover around 30 degrees I think that is enough evidence as to why firework are not on my schedule. As an added bonus, there is a firework display near my house which is conveniently set off at a spot where I can watch it from my living room if I so choose. I'll even hear the booms of the various explosions. It's all the sights and sounds without having to stand around losing feeling in my toes. In fact, it sounds like the only thing I will be missing out on is the smell.

Yes, the other day I read this very strange story which contended that a company had recently developed a firework which, when detonated, would produce the normal firework display but then would also be accompanied by smoke which would smell like various fruit flavors. Strawberry is the most popular but the company claims they can also produce smoke which would smell like cherry or watermelon. (The article was also accompanied by a second article about the confetti one town would be throwing which is going to be made from banana peels to be more biodegradable. This has all the makings of the most sweet-smelling New Years in history.) As you can imagine, after reading this I was flushed with questions but the most pressing of all was also the most obvious: why? I think by now it is clear that fireworks aren't really my thing and that I haven't been to a firework show in years but in the few memories I have of them at no point do I recall smell really being much of an issue. Personally I always thought the lingering smoke was more of a pain in seeing the rest of the show, not making people smell like they just came from a bar in the 1950s. If your fireworks are going off low enough to envelope the crowd in smoke cloud than I think you have bigger issues to address than making sure they the smoke smells pleasant. This just seems like another one of those innovations which came around because some very smart people were being misused at the office. I mean, the people who came up with this are obviously some pretty talented chemists, so is this really the best use of their time?

Now, I don't want you to think that I believe this innovation is a bad thing - just misplaced. I'm hoping this is one of those ideas which starts out as a recreational concept and is eventually adopted by for a serious purpose, like when the US military started using Silly Sting after they discovered it was very good at find trip wires attached to roadside explosives. What needs to happen here is that we could find a way to transfer the fruit-flavoring to cigarette smoke. I know that it won't make smoking any healthier but it is not like it can get much more unhealthy and at least this way the people in an office setting won't have to deal with the odor after their coworker comes back from a smoking break. Obviously there are other issues which have to be worked out - I can't be the first person to have this idea (I feel like flavored tobacco was a thing at one point), which is why I can only conclude the reason cigarette smoke has stayed as pungent as it has for so many years is that the last thing parents want is there kids hanging around smoking areas because they love the smell. All I want is some kind of happy medium where smokers can continue their habit without me feeling like I have to burn everything I wore simply because I stood near their smoking section that night. It sounds like a win-win for everyone so it will just be a matter of figuring out many small mixtures instead of one big one like you would find in a firework. For all our sakes I hope it is easier than figuring out how to make fireworks appear in new patterns because apparently that is impossible.