4th of July Redux

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t love the 4th of July? Maybe the French, but they don’t really count anyways. I love the 4th. Despite my lack of patriotism (don’t judge, DC shoves enough patriotism down your throat to make you vomit red white and blue on a day to day basis) I’m obsessed with any day that 1) is a national holiday 2) features explosions in the sky 3) allows for excessive consumption of meat and alcohol. Unfortunately everyone gets spread thin with parties and blood alcohol poisoning which makes it hard to spend that quality stumbley time together. While I did enjoy the fireworks from a few miles up the road with a bottle of stolen Absolut in my hand, I missed being super close to the show on the Mall and felt bad for missing so many of my friends.

Meat Flags- Patriotism the way it SHOULD be expressed.

Enter the Founding of Alexandria. Conveniently, the anniversary of Alexandria’s founding is the weekend after the 4th, and it’s complete with fireworks, tourists and all the usual ‘God Bless America’ crap. So naturally we all got together and cooked up some burgers and mixed a few drinks to celebrate the occasion in my scandalously awesome friend Rachel’s apartment. Day drinking is one of my favorite sports, and one I can actually compete competitively in. Wine, beer, Margaritas and weird concoctions were all freely flowing during our afternoon of fun and awkward photos. Before we knew it Rachel was yelling about how it was time to go, which I heard as ‘hurry up and do some shots before its time to go’.

At some point in the day I had managed to acquire a red white and blue curly bow thing that seemed to hang perfectly from the cords of my swim suit. While it might have clashed with my green shirt that read ‘The Filipino Is Worth Dying For’, I felt like I was making a positive loin cloth fashion statement for America the beautiful. As our merry band made the trek out to Old Town Alexandria we hit a few bumps along the way. This is mostly referring to Rachel’s friend from out of town who had a broken arm.

You have to realize that to get down to the waterfront in Alexandria it is best to take a free trolley (not a bus, a trolley), and the area is filled with old rich white people, families (with their damn kids) and tourists. If we didn’t stick out already, we sure as shit did when Rachel’s friend projectile vomited all over his arm sling and door on the trolley. At first I thought the kid had a nose bleed, as he was hunched over, but the smelly truth soon hit me like a pimp hits a lazy hoe.
"I'm going on the trolley to... where am I going again?"

We hopped off the trolley as the rest of the passengers were ‘getting wind’ of the situation, and I reverted to ‘fuck this, not my gross problem’ mode. Fortunately my dear friend Aria is just as much of a bitch as I am, and was more than happy to go to the bathroom in a nearby hotel (aka crack open a flask) while Jen and everyone else figured out what to do with the puking problem.

By the time we finally made it down to the waterfront we were down a puking man, but thoroughly enjoying ourselves and taking pictures. The fireworks were very meh, and I thought they were over a few times when they weren’t. But nevertheless it was fun, and for a place like Alexandria it was as much as could be expected.

Our metro home was awesome, because what’s better than a group of drunk college kids on a train filled with families and kids? I’ll tell you. A group of drunk college kids on a train filled with families and kids where I end up belting out the theme song from ‘The Golden Girls’ to my friends and everyone else on the train. I realize the intense gayness of this statement, but if you don’t like the Golden Girls and haven’t ever gotten ‘Thank You For Being A Friend’ stuck in your head for days at a time then you probably shouldn’t be reading this.

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