I’ll have some actual knitting content on the new blog soon, but I wanted to explain how you could have a really interesting Fourth of July in four easy steps.

1. Get together for a cookout on the 3rd, because most of your friends have the 4th off. Eat burgers, set off illegal fireworks brought up from South Carolina, and burn yourself with a sparkler because you are trying to hold like six of them at the same time. Run out of fireworks, then complain about how unfair it is that (semi)responsible adults can’t have fun things in our state because of The Children and The Morons That Blow Their Fingers Off. Get tipsy enough to think driving to South Carolina for more fireworks is a great idea, but not too tipsy that you can’t actually pack and hit the road.



2. Leave your town around 11:30pm and head for South of the Border. While driving through Fayetteville, see who can spot the most pawn shops, tattoo parlors, and strip clubs. Read all South of the Border billboards aloud and laugh at the stupid puns. Arrive at SoB, be awed by all the neon, and get a room from the surly night clerk lady. Wake up the next morning, try to ignore how skeezy the room looks, and apply badass snake dragon temporary tattoo.



3. Walk around the next day, eat at the diner, and pretend not to be disappointed at how much crappier the place looks without the benefit of darkness and large amounts of neon. Hang out in the tourist junk stores because most of the other attractions are exaggerated and/or smell like pee. Go up the Sombrero Tower and look for amusing graffiti, then have lunch in a place with a sombrero-shaped salad bar and a velvet painting of a cockfight.



4. Try to nap after your friends drop you off, but end up watching a documentary about fireworks accidents. Grill again, and set off the new batch of fireworks in the name of freedom and explosions. Make those awesome tank ones attack each other a few times because that is hilarious. Be paranoid about someone calling the cops even though there are at least 4 other houses in your neighborhood with contraband flying fireworks and the cops haven’t seemed to care much during the last couple of years when everyone else but you had some. Then go inside and post about it on the internet.

And here’s a bonus photo of that velvet painting, because it has to be seen to be believed.