A fireworks show that no one asked for (but we all paid for)
Ah, Christmas Eve. Time for peace, love, and of course, turning private properties into improvised funeral pyres. In the always vibrant Mazatlán, someone decided that the true Christmas spirit was not in the turkey, but in sneaking a forbidden explosive device into a home that, for added drama, also functioned as a grocery store. Because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like the smell of burning gunpowder mixed with that of charred fried foods. The result was a fire of the kind that makes firefighters wonder if they are in an emergency or on the set of an action movie.
The emergency forces, those anonymous heroes who interrupt their dinner to deal with our lack of common sense, had to act against the clock to prevent the spectacle from spreading to the neighboring houses. Imagine the scene: while some toast, others run with hoses to extinguish the consequences of a decision that, surely, seemed “super fun” at the time. The only miraculous thing about the night was that no injuries were reported in this incident. Only material damage, which at the end of the day, are just things, right? The identity of the genius behind this interior pyrotechnic “experiment” remains a mystery, although there were several gunpowder enthusiasts in the colony. A true community united by danger.
When Santa’s gifts are amputations and surgeries
But why settle for a simple fire? The health sector of Sinaloa, always attentive, gave us a summary of the most notable “accidents.” In giant quotes, because calling playing with homemade explosives an accident is like calling jumping out of a plane without a parachute an “unexpected dip.” In total, four episodes worth mentioning. Two of them, of extreme severity: a 33-year-old gentleman in Guasave now has a hand that looks like a wrong counting glove, having lost three fingers. A Christmas memory that, without a doubt, you will carry with you forever.
Not far behind was a 17-year-old teenager in the capital, Culiacán, who had an artifact explode in his face. Your end-of-year gift will be a long and expensive cosmetic surgery treatment. Because the important thing is not to not play with gunpowder, but to have good medical insurance that covers facial reconstruction, of course. To complete the picture, a 12-year-old boy in Navolato and a 15-year-old boy in Guasave suffered minor injuries and burns. “Mild”, that wonderful euphemism we use when things could have been worse, but they were still bad.
All this with a common denominator: the sale of these artifacts is prohibited. But, surprise surprise, the ban works as well as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. Illegal gunpowder circulates more easily than good wishes in December, and the result is this balance of destruction and pain that, with overwhelming logic, we happily repeat every season. The firefighters and the Red Cross go out of their way to put out the fires, literally and metaphorically, that we ourselves light with a silly smile.
In summary, the pyrotechnic tradition left us a lesson in the form of accidents and injuries: sometimes, the festive spirit can be literally explosive, and not always for the better. Next time, perhaps an out-of-tune Christmas carol would be enough to celebrate. It’s just as annoying, but much less likely to cause fires or amputations.
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