After years of residential confusion, NextDoor announced today it’s launching an official online certification program to help people with no better way to waste their lives distinguish the difference between the sounds of fireworks and gunshots in their nightly posts on the subject.
“Sure, most folks can hear your standard ‘pa-pa-pop-pop-whiz’ and know it’s a firework, but others are absolutely sure it’s a homeless Rambo walking around with an M60 and fully loaded bandolier—for them we have the NextDoor AudioBallistics Certification Program,” said NextDoor spokesman John Higgins. “Never again will you end up embarrassed to find some asshole correcting your post on a mad gunman roaming the neighborhood with confirmation that it was just a 15-year-old with some leftover July 4th fireworks. We know no one would ever correct you with facts on the Safe Seattle Facebook page, but for everywhere else, this knowledge comes in mighty handy.”
Magnolia resident Karen Smith said she learned a lot when she took the course while it was being beta-tested last month.
“As disappointing as it was to find that most of these sounds I post about online every night weren’t an army of the undead coming to kill my family specifically, it was very educational,” said Smith. “I suppose I could connect the dots here and also admit to myself that I’ve just been imagining that violent crime is increasing. Even The Seattle Times reports somewhere at the bottom of its news articles that it’s not. But what kind of Karen would I be if I did that?”
The program begins next week with an optional bonus certification class on Helicopter Flyover Theory.
