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Shadowsan's eyes narrowed at the sixth bag of hot dog buns Zach unloaded on the counter. "You realize this amounts to thirty-two individual buns?"

"Thirty-six!" Ivy corrected, tossing bag number seven onto the pile.

Shadowsan grumbled at the teetering pyramid of highly processed carbohydrates. "And I presume you have a reason for purchasing thirty-six hot dog buns." (the omission of 'good' being intentional).

"These!" Grinning wildly, Zach upended a different shopping bag, dumping more packages of hot dogs than Shadowsan wanted to count on the counter, meaty thuds tumbling through the kitchen.

"Look, it's July 4th." Ivy planted a hand on her hip as Shadowsan grumbled louder (yes, omitting 'good' was appropriate). "Whaddya want us to do, be unpatriotic?"

"Remembering the founding of one's country has little do to with overindulging on processed meats," Shadowsan intoned.

"Not even if we wash them down with this?" Zach waggled his eyebrows as he hefted a pair of two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola in the air, labels spangled with red, white, and blue.

From the den, Player chuckled at the look of absolute horror that crossed Shadowsan's face at the display of 'patriotism' (or, at least, capitalism) before him. "Really glad I'm Canadian right now," Player said under his breath to Carmen, seated next to him on the couch.

Carmen hummed, not taking her attention from positioning her fingers for a G-chord on the guitar Player was teaching her to strum. "What, your family didn't clean out the grocery store for a cookout three days ago?"

"Here. Move your fingers- yeah, like that. And nope." Player's expression was smug as he sat back after adjusting Carmen's fingers on the strings. "We make a normal amount of hot dogs."

"This is normal!"

Player continued as if Zach and Ivy hadn't said anything. "Can confirm: gorging yourself on hot dogs is a distinctly American pastime. Case in point-"

Flipping open the laptop on the coffee table, Player typed something into the search bar and pulled up a video stream of a bevy of men taking their seats at a long table piled high with hot dogs.

"Ooh! Is that the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest?!?" Zach zipped over and leaned over the back of the couch, sighing dreamily. "My life's goal..."

"An American Fourth of July tradition since 1972," Player said, shaking his head in something like disgust.

With the air of a man who is fully aware that curiosity murdered many a feline, Shadowsan drifted alongside Zach to see what the goal that had the boy staring starry-eyed at the laptop was. He had the (debatable) good fortune to arrive just as the emcee shouted "GO!" and the contestants started shoveling hot dogs down their gullets with a fervor and speed that was, in a word, nauseating.

He grimaced. "You should aspire higher, Zachary."

"Eating big is a time-honored American past time!" Zach protested, eyes not leaving the laptop. "Like Slurpee Big Gulps!"

Shadowsan despised Slurpee Big Gulps.

"How many can they eat?" Carmen asked while Shadowsan sharpened his glower, watching the spectacle with mixed fascination and revulsion (on the one hand, she'd seen Zach eat tacos; on the other...this was on a completely different level).

"The record is seventy-six," Player said flatly, arms folded.

“Someone actually ate that many?” Carmen furrowed her brow, trying to picture that while behind her, Shadowsan made a sound like he wished Player did not know quite so much trivia.

"The hero we don't deserve..." Zach murmured reverently.

"I'll say," Player muttered underneath the "Bro! Carm's right there!" Ivy, who was immune to the wonders/horrors of Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, shouted from the kitchen.

"Well, we do deserve her! She's right here!" Zach beamed. "Besides, she doesn't mind sharing the limelight, right boss? I mean, look at these guys!"

"...Suuuuuure," Carmen said absently as a man dunked a hot dog in his glass of water and slid the soggy snack down his throat (...hopefully Zach's hero worship didn't culminate in emulation; she was suddenly concerned about the number of hot dogs they bought).

"Why are we all still watching this?" Shadowsan growled after five minutes passed and the laptop screen was still tuned to the contestants inhaling processed pork.

"Good point." Player flipped down the screen, eliciting a howl of protest from Zach. Ivy promptly yelled for him to come help her set up the grill on the patio, a chore he bounded off to with a golden retriever's enthusiasm, while Shadowsan followed with lengthy strides (true, the grill was of the electric variety and not half as riddled with fire-starting potential as its charcoal brethren, but a wise man did not make the same mistakes twice).

Alone in the den, Player flipped open the laptop again and made a face at the footage of the triumphant victor, pumping a belt with a gaudy fake-gold buckle in the air. "I’m gonna say it: the ways people celebrate this holiday make no sense.”

Carmen strummed the strings, a velvety chord rustling the air. She was about to say she’s sure there was a reason (probably related to capitalism, like so many American traditions seemed to be), when two very out-of-tune voices singing along with the radio drifted through the open window right above the patio.

“BOOOOOORN IN THE USAAAAAA!!!”

Carmen bit her lip, checking a grin as Player rolled his eyes and tromped to the window to shout down if they knew that staple of the patriotic songbook was actually critical of America. "Little short on holiday spirit, Player?"

"Only when a lack of listening comprehension is involved," he grimaced, coming back to the couch (really a second verse of his Christmas pet peeve, when "Hallelujah" was part of every holiday deejay's arsenal). "Surprised you're so into it, though." He tugged the sleeve of her shirt, striped red and white with thumbnail-sized blue stars sparkling here and there.

"It's important to Zach and Ivy," she shrugged. "And my color. Plus-" She paused, looking out the window to the bay and the horizon beyond. So similar to the one she gazed out at as a girl caged by the shores of the Island, and yet, in ways that transcended coruscations of sunlight on waves or the whitecaps dotting the expanse, so different.

"Independence is worth celebrating, you know?"