I spent the summer I was 17 in central Massachusetts, just outside Worcester. I’d taken US history the previous year, and had gotten to the state level with my History Day project on Hamilton and Jefferson. So to say I was a little bit fixated with the Founding Fathers would be… a bit of an understatement. And here I was, on the side of the country where it ALL HAPPENED, and I was thrilled. I’d grown up spending the Fourth attending the Frontier Days parade in Willits and associating the holiday with rodeo. That year, though, I spent the fourth of July watching fireworks over the harbor in Bar Harbor, ME. The history I’d loved and the location I was in were united, for the first time ever, and I was radiant with the idea of this country that I lived in.

Flash forward to the summer I was 24 (which is to say, today). It was my third summer back in California after going to college in Massachusetts. And, just like every summer since the one when I was 17, the history was gone again. I tried and failed to rent 1776, so instead I stood out barbecuing tofu kebabs in the Mission and listening to hipsters accuse each other of being anti-American(1). And then I watched Zoolander.

In short, I had a day off of work, and a really fun night with my friend Jen. But it was a great day celebrating the Grill Things In the Summer While Fireworks Boom holiday, and not the Hey Remember When Jefferson Was Self-Aggrandizing in the 1890s and Convinced Everyone To Celebrate His Achievement On the Fourth of July and Not Any Of the Other Big Dates In the War holiday, which is kind of sad (2).

But something kind of hilarious did happen when I was leaving Jen’s:
Bizarre European: Is it okay if I urinate on somebody’s home?
Me: Whatever, dude. ::walks bike to corner::
European: ::follows:: No, really, I’m not going to get arrested or anything?
Me: ::Looks at him blankly::
European: You aren’t an undercover cop, are you? You aren’t blending in like a local with your bicycle and the thing in your hand [a bike helmet] waiting for me to pee, and then you’ll arrest me?
Me: You’ve caught me. I’m an undercover cop.
European: ::starts explaining why he wasn’t able to pee in a bar::
Traffic light: ::turns green::
Me: ::bikes away, relieved::

(1) Note to self: When you see a t-shirt with the text “Die hipster scum” for sale, and you think to yourself, “I should get that. It would be ironic and hilarious” then you have already lost.
(2) I kind of broke up with Jefferson in college. I sort of refer to him in the style of a bitter ex these days.