This one time, in our last year of high school at John Paul College in Rotorua, 2 friends and I set off to The Warehouse one weekend to buy a pack of “Moon Traveller” bottle rockets (and a lighter).
They came in 12 packs of 12.
Yes, that’s 144 rockets each.
We went to the school grounds that Saturday, and to the far corner of the property which has a stream on 3 sides and a big shed for the schools lawn mowing equipment.
The precise location is shown on this map:
And there we had our bottle rocket war.
No eye protection. No rules. Just 144 rockets each and a lighter. Just 2 hours of exhilerating danger and fun.
Sure, we got burn holes in our good clothes, and a few mildly toasted fingers. But nobody died. Nobody lost an eye. It was just good old fashioned, play-in-the-dirt fun.
In fact, it was so much fun, the next day (Sunday) we did the same again, this time with another friend.
So the 4 of us had another 576 bottle rockets between us.
More burn holes in our favourite clothes, more burnt fingers but still no major injuries.
The next day at school assembly, the principal asked who was responsible for the 1000 spent bottle rockets lying around that corner of the property.
None of us said a word.