I finally caved in this year and made a visit to the fireworks stand — my first in many, many years. My nephew is in town and my wife and I didn’t want to go to the Mall, so we settled on shooting off some of our own and walking around the neighborhood to admire our neighbors’ displays.

The block around the house is typically a full-scale explosives zone on July 4, up to and including mortar balls that shoot far up in the air and explode with some serious pyrotechnics, so I assumed at least some of the fun stuff was legal in Virginia. I assumed wrong; pretty much anything that Blows Up Real Good is against the law here.

Although we picked up a few fun objects — the ‘exploding cactus’ won the price/performance challenge and the big sparking fountain we set off for the finale was genuinely enjoyable — a lot of the alleged fireworks were so wimpy that they were embarrassing. And no firecrackers, bottle rockets or Roman candles? Really?

This made me wonder where my neighbors were going to score their supplies. A quick Google search indicated that Pennsylvania was a popular destination, with the Carolinas also coming in handy if you happened to be passing that way. And on the Fairfax Underground bulletin board, someone noted this fact: You can’t buy this in Virginia:

…but you can buy this: