Drama in my driveway on NYE

For those of you that don't know me too well yet, there were times in my past where I may have overdone it on New Year's Eve with the revelry and rambunctiousness.  However, for the past decade or so, I've settled down quite a bit, and especially since this was our first New Year's Eve with a little one, I kind of expected a quiet night.

No such luck.

Last year, our new neighbors had a full on party, complete with over an hour of setting off fireworks in their backyard and driveway.  This year, since I saw two blue balloons on their mailbox, indicating a recently born baby boy, I thought that they might curb their festivities or eliminate them all together.

No such luck.

We had gone to a friends' house for a short while earlier in the evening - ate some yummy food, got to be a little social, but then, we headed home around 9pm to settle in for the night.  We got the baby to bed around 10pm, and decided to call it a night. 

I ended up sleeping on the couch (my beloved snores a little loudly for me to sleep through), which ended up being fortuitous, considering what unfolded just after midnight.

At the stroke of midnight, much to my dismay, the fireworks began.  It was sporadic, at first, but quickly picked up momentum over the next fifteen minutes.  They were having a good time, and while I was annoyed at being woken up, I recognized that it was New Year's Eve, and I would be a scrooge if I went out and asked them to stop. I hoped it would fizzle out, without incident, pretty quickly. 

No such luck.

At 12:15, I heard one of the fireworks literally fly across our lawn, and smash something glass in our driveway.  I flew off the couch - and stormed out to the driveway to find out what had been damaged.  The first words out of my neighbor's mouth were "Wow, you got out here fast!", followed quickly by many apologies, and a blurry, slurry explanation of how the bottle rocket had "tumped over" and before they could get it set up straight again, it had fired off towards our house and directly into the light fixture, smashing it. 

Realizing the futility of getting mad or attempting to do anything about the situation in the dark, I asked if we could just be done with the fireworks for the night, and said we would talk in the morning.  They agreed, and I thought we were finished for the evening. 

No such luck.

About 5 minutes later, I heard voices in the driveway, and ran to get my husband (who had slept through the first part of the incident).  He decided to go out and survey the scene.  He exited through the garage, and raised the door with the opener.  The scene we found would have been hilarious, if it weren't on our own house:  three slightly intoxicated people, who had apparently removed one of the fixtures from their own house, and were attempting to replace our fixture with theirs...complete with rewiring it, in the dark, while drunk!  Thank goodness that my husband didn't hit the light switch when he opened the garage, or he would have electrocuted them all! 

After a few minutes of supervision/consultation, my husband determined that they had, in fact, wired everything properly, and sent them home.  

So much for starting the year off quietly - instead, we had drama in our very own driveway!