by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

For the 19th straight summer, Montreal's East Enders have regenerated their weekly rite of hauling their old metal foldable lawn chairs and bags of snacks to the sidewalks next to Notre-Dame E. Then they sit down and watch fireworks. Bang. Ooh, pretty pink circles. Wow! Mauve streamers!

I like fireworks as much as the next hick. When they're attached to a larger celebratory ritual it can be quite, uh… you know… cathartic. But if you're finding yourself staring at fireworks just for the colours and shapes, it's a sign that there's not a whole lot going on in your life. I watched the annual fireworks competition the other night amid the people on blankets at Morgan Park. Boom. Purple. Wow. Boom. Red. Wow. Whoosh. Nice. It's like staring at a funky screensaver. I've had better thrills staring out a window hoping the neighbour walks by her window in a tube top. It gets my vote as the city's most incomprehensible tradition, but thank God some people are so easily entertained. After the great nuclear accident and we're all living in caves, these same people will be able to amuse themselves by making shadow puppets on the walls.

The worst part is that if you venture down to see the display in a motor vehicle you'll get stuck inching home hours afterwards in the post fireworks traffic.

This got me thinking: traffic is the great equalizer. No matter how rich you are, or nice your rims, you still get stuck next to the rusty shitbox in a traffic jam.

The sneaky-minded might have an advantage however. Now, I believe and espouse ethical behaviour but many of the traffic rules are quite arbitrary and since Machiavelli didn't give driving tips, I thought I'd provide a few here.

• Get a MIRT. If you're a fatalist you accept red lights. But you can get revenge with a Mobile Infrared Transmitter, a gizmo you can plug into your dash and furtively activate to change a red light to green. These remote-control devices are functional and used throughout the world, and if you use them carefully you might save a few seconds. Although technically you're supposed to be a firefighter or law enforcement or something to use it.

• You need a "baby on board" sticker. It's a more subtle version of "If you give me a ticket you will deprive my hungry child of a toy or a meal." Cops will back off. Hopefully.

• Stop signs in mall parking lots? Nope, don't bother.

• Never take a handicapped parking space, unless there are no others available. If queried, explain that there's a consensus among your exes that you're an emotional cripple. Loblaws has special parking spaces for pregnant women. You might be pregnant; it's not entirely impossible.

• Turning right on reds is illegal on the island but I don't think anybody would really object if you do it slowly when nobody is around. Besides, do the math: you can make that inoffensive turn, say, 600 times before you get nailed for a $140 ticket. You've saved 10 hours of your life, so it's a good deal. Besides, if you wait, you're violating the environment. Towns all over are campaigning against idling unnecessarily. For example, Mississauga advises motorists to cut their engines if they're going to idle for more than 10 seconds. If Canadian motorists avoided idling just five minutes a day each, they would prevent more than 3,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide from pouring into Canada's air daily, whatever that means. Natural Resources Canada will even mail you an entire kit of anti-idling propaganda posters and other material to make you into an instant anti-idling Nazi. Don't think of yourself as doing illegal right-on-reds, think of yourself as combating the plague of needless idling.

There are other tips just too sneaky to really get behind, like putting your parking tickets on another vehicle in the hopes that he'll pay it without thinking. Nor do I espouse the idea that you should carry a stepladder and ratchet in your trunk to remove no parking signs.

But after all, you do have to get there.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca