My July 4th Weekend, By Matthew Shevin.

They say marijuana isn’t a performance-enhancing drug, but I would totally smoke a lot of pot before a hot dog eating contest and wind up setting a record.

My nephew and I kicked off the holiday in the most patriotic way: with the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. I served up dogs so that we could honor these finely-tuned athletes in the most appropriate way.

I’d actually trained a bit for it two weeks ago, during a Long Beach outdoor lunch featuring a hot dog toaster. That was class.

Hope everyone else had a good 4th. If you saw fireworks, awesome. If you played with fireworks, I hope you didn’t pull a Jason Pierre-Paul. And if you had to work, thank you for keeping the world spinning while the rest of us enjoyed the weekend off.