Man, I look at this list and it's amazing any of us kids born in the '70s made it to adulthood. When we weren't lighting off fireworks right near a smoldering ashtray we were riding in the back of a pickup truck on the way to buy more illegal fireworks.

Yikes - about 10,000 people wind up in the emergency room each year due to accidents involving fireworks. The ER is not a festive place to spend the Fourth.

Fireworks are less stressful for creatures that can understand people language. This leaves your dog right out, and probably he doesn't know what you're saying when you tell him everything's OK.