bang

Congratulations, Virginia! You finally have something to be proud of. But of course I'm joking. I mean, just look at that sentence construction! It ends in a preposition! HILARIOUS! (Laugh, dammit.)

However, even if I did write, "Congratulations, Virginia! You finally have something of which to be proud," it'd still be funny. Not only because that second sentence sounds like it should be read by someone in a monocle and a top hat, but because of the joke I embedded in it -- that the only thing Virginia has to be proud of is the fact that the woman who can hold the most hotdogs in her stomach is from there.

And while, yes, that is quite an accomplishment, it is, in fact, a joke. Obviously, it's not the only thing Virginia has going for it. See, in addendum to being the breeding ground for women who can stuff their faces with five grills full of barbecued meats, Virginia is also noteworthy because it's a great place to explode things. And so, yes, I spent America's Birthday not in America's Capital, but across the river, in America's Weiner-Eaters Birthplace Capital setting off colorful explosives.

Except I nearly regurgitated my sausage when one firework I had purchased from a teenager on the side of a Pennsylvania highway shot not straight into the open air but at a diagonal directly into the power line. OOPS! Clearly, I should've purchased my explosives from Bang-Bang and Boom-Boom (and you're gonna wanna click on that link).

But this wasn't a normal, run-of-the-mill firework that just shoots up and explodes; it was a Sky Banger, which does exactly what it boasts. It sort of thrusts up and down for a bit before finally exploding in a shiny sea of ejaculating sparks. (Ew.) Under perfect conditions, the Sky Banger would do this all at about 30-to-50 feet. But here's the thing about power lines: they kind of f*ck up trajectories, meaning the whole sky-bang process ended up being more like 15-to-who-the-hell-knows-how-many-feet-because-we-were-all-flat-on-the-ground-hoping-we-weren't-'bout-to-die.

But I'm alive! The power lines remained intact and no one even sustained even minor burns. Full success. Kind of. And, hey, I see you're all alive, too, if you're able to read this blog right now, so USA! USA! USA! And most importantly, I'm happy to be back in the District where the power lines are underground.