I just want to tell you guys what my perfect day would be, if I got to pick all my favorite things to do. That's pretty much what the 4th of July was this year.
I started off the day with one of each of my 3 favorite breakfast foods: english muffin, donut, and bagel with cream cheese. You can eat whatever you want on the Fourth of July, I'm pretty sure it says that in the constitution. Then me and my roommates headed out to Coney Island for the hot dog eating contest, the most American of sports.
I could tell you the story like this: We went to Coney Island, we saw the hot dog eating contest, then we went to the beach and ate a hot dog, then we went home, it was great. But then you wouldn't understand all the weird things that made the experience different from the television. So I tried to write down all the key things that could really make you feel like you were there, but as I was writing this I realized that most people probably just want to hear the one sentence version and then want me to shut up. So there's that version, you can pretty much stop reading now.
The opening ceremonies of the whole shebang began with a girl singing the national anthem, which was fitting, I guess. Standing next to her was a guy in a hot dog costume. If you didn't look too closely, you could pretend that the hot dog was singing the anthem.
Then there was the kids version of the contest, which they called something like "Meat" Eating Contest but they were saying some word that sounded like "meat" but wasn't, and no one could understand what it was over the microphone. Everyone was like, oh god what are they doing to these kids. It eventually became apparent that it was a "Neat" eating contest, to be judged on manners. Real cute, right? The best part was the few kids who either didn't understand the contest, or didn't care, and were eating as fast as they could anyway. This one kid was really going at it. The asshole MC announced that everyone tied for first place and that kid was broken hearted.
Then they had an old guy and a young guy doing flips on a trampoline. The old guy was an "Olympic silver medalist" and a "Guinness World Record holder." He jump-roped with a hoola hoop, and I think that's what his world record is in.
Then they introduce the celebrity guest, Nick Cannon, but he didn't really do anything. He was just like "Hey, uh, glad to be here." I don't think he came back for the rest of the show. Maybe once. I don't care.
Then they had the first official women's contest, and they were all wearing tshirts and not bikinis, so I was happy. This contest was pretty exciting and I was pretty into it. The lady who won ate 40 hot dogs. She was already the record holder with 42. That's crazy. When they announced her at the start they said she weighed 102 pounds. I don't know how many pounds of hot dogs 42 is, but it's like, way too big of a percentage of her body-weight to be eating. She's an athlete and I love her. Here's her wikipedia entry:
Sonya ThomasAfter the women's contest I was about ready to be done, and they kept drawing out the show by shooting tshirts at the crowd. They had this one guy on the stage, and introduced him as a past competitor that wasn't able to compete. Then they had him do a rap. It was so embarrassing and I wanted it to stop. I couldn't tell what he was rapping about. The only way I can make it ok for myself is to imaging he was rapping about hot dogs, and even then, it's pretty awful. He even came back later and did another one. They did a bunch of other crap that I was too hot for, so when it was finally time for the main event I was pretty happy. They announced all the eaters with little videos and it looked just like when you watch professional wrestling. We all picked out favorite based on the video, mine was this guy because of his Ultimate Warrior mask. His nickname is "Eater X." They all have nicknames like that.
The old champ Joey Chestnut won, so it wasn't too exciting, but it was pretty gross and funny to watch his technique. This picture has been making me laugh for about 3 hours.
Then it was over and we tried to get out of there as quick as possible, but almost got trampled.
Did you know: There's a ride at Coney Island called "THE GHOST HOLE" which I want to go on before I die, but can't go on until I live a long and full life because it will probably kill me.
THE GHOST HOLE. Are you kidding me? I could never have made up a better name for a ride if I had thought about it my whole life.
Scary!
We didn't have any time or money for rides so we trekked on to the beach, which was packed full of people having the time of their lives in the filthy water, and that made me pretty happy. Me and Allison waded in up to our knees, and I probably would have dove in right there if there weren't so many kids in my way.
We were hot and sunburned, but I didn't want to leave without getting a coney dog, so we went to go stand in line. The line to order wasn't so long, and I ordered a chili dog. After we ordered we had to go into the pickup line, and that was a complete disaster. We had a receipt with a number, and they were calling numbers, but they were also just taking the receipts of anyone who would crowd up to the window. The people in front of us were a group of foreigners with this one guy trying to explain to them what everything was, and I loved how long it took everyone to understand what a corn dog was. It was seriously beautiful. He was in the wrong line though.
The second line was some kind of hell and some other lady almost killed everyone when they wouldn't let her order from the pickup window. I didn't think anything would be worth all that drama, and let's be real, when I finally bit into that hot dog, it wasn't. But it was pretty close to being worth it.
When we were walking back to the train, we sort of got into a fight when these teenage no-goodniks were throwing exploding caps at the crowd (you know that kind that you throw on the ground and make a loud bang?) and couple of them hit us. Josh turned and told the kid that he had hit him and that he couldn't just throw things at people, and the kid apologized with a shit eating grin, and then the girl next to him was like, "We didn't mean to hit anyone," and then I lost it and yelled at her and called her a liar and that throwing things at a crowd made her a piece of shit and that was it. Somehow the fact that there was this stupid girl being impressed by this stupid guy made me the most mad. Anyway, I guess we won, only because we didn't get pelted by caps to the back of our heads when we turned to walk away. Josh and I are now in a gang and we will fight anyone so LINE UP!
When we got back to BAY RIDGE we had a short internet break followed by a last minute trip to the store and then the main event was on. Everyone prepared a ton of food to cook - I made kebobs with bacon-wrapped steak chunks - and we headed up to the roof. Our grill is pretty small so we were cooking things for the next 4 hours and then it was dark and we burned things and it was the only way I ever want to spend a day. We couldn't see the big Macy's fireworks display on the Hudson, but there were some fireworks going off around Brooklyn that we could sort of see behind buildings, and that was enough.
The happiest you will ever possibly see me.
