My over-zealous alarm clock

BOOM!!! You wake up, disoriented, and look at your watch: it's 6:00am. BOOM!!! Another one - you sigh, attempt to bury your head under the blankets, and try to go back to sleep. BOOM! BOOM! The cohetes, on the other hand, are already up and at 'em, and you know in your heart that your plan to sleep in 'til 7:30 has once again been ruined.

This is a typical morning in Cajabamba. Cohetes (pronounced "co-ett-ehs"), the source of the early-morning sonic booms, are rocket-type fireworks that people here love to shoot off on any and all relevant occasions. Yes, it is totally legal for anyone anywhere to shoot off rockets at any hour of the day. And no, nobody thinks it's weird or complaint-worthy when two dozen such rockets are shot off at 6am, or at midnight, when, logically, the majority of the town might be trying to sleep. People are celebrating - gotta let them have their fun, right?

These cohetes irk me to no end, primarily because, as previously mentioned, they are shot off while I'm trying to snooze. But also because they are all about the noise - other kinds of fireworks produce pretty lights when they go off, with their popping and cracking noises endured as necessary pyrotechnical side effects. The cohetes, on the other hand, do not shoot off a single spark! And they are six times as loud and ear-ringing as normal fireworks. So deep down, my real issue with the cohetes is their irrationality: why in the world are these particular rockets the firework of choice in my town? Any logical person would select something with more lights and less explosive sound. But for some reason, the cohetes have secured first place in pyrotechnics here, so my mornings will continue to be interrupted for every holiday, religious festival, child's birthday, school anniversary, saint's day, random parade, etc. At least I'll never miss an important day!