One Hundred and Fifty Million Hotdogs

One hundred and fifty million hotdogs were consumed over the Fourth of July. So what does this say about Americans? Be it Chicago Dogs or New York Dogs foot longs or wieners...we love our hotdogs. We are a fun loving nitrate eating people who really owe a debt to that German vendor who improvised one day at a baseball game when he ran out of bacon and started offering sausages wrapped in a bun. We don't really care that much about what is really in a hotdog after all that scare tactics of the hotdog haters of the world.

And while the World Cup played on we were busy slathering our 150 million hotdogs with tons of ketchup and mustard and relish and onions. And how many pickles did we consume? Lets give us one pickle for every two hotdogs and we are at seventy five million pickles. The cucumber farmers must love this holiday. And that also means we inhaled 150 million buns. And used 150 million napkins and you know we had to have something to drink.

So what...one hundred million gallons of pop? Lets give a quarter of the dogs fries. 35 million fries and how many spuds does that convert to...well...you get the picture. And the funny part is people all over the world love hotdogs too. They see it as the American food. So while the rest of the world was losing their mind over soccer we were clenching our nitrate tubes of animal parts and clogging our hearts and stirring up the toxins.

Ah...Happy Birthday America! And please pass the mustard.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Vacationing with Family

Vacationing with family is a bit like riding an old bike. You really don't remember the way it used to be and the bike is rusty and squeaky and has a flat and just getting it to roll down the hill is problematic. Sometimes it wont even do that and you question why you pulled it out at all. Isn't it time to retire that old bike? Maybe give it to Good Will or leave it out by the trash. But no, you put it back in the garage and leave it there until the next time you decide to take a ride.

And so it is when you get together with all those adult siblings and cousins and in-laws. There is the real question every time...why am I putting myself through this. The problem of course is that adults have hidden agendas, neurosis, motivations, hurts, wants and then then they have wives and children and husbands and grandkids and just about every other ganglia of human relations. Now take all these people and put them in the blender of a family vacation say in a cottage. The Perfect Storm is what you have.

And it is inevitable. Slights dating back to when you were kids. Wrongs felt thirty years later. Alliances from childhood. And now you have the tripwires laid. Husbands feeling left out. Wives feeling wronged by sisters who always had everything. Sons bored out of their skulls. Grandparents checked out. Television on twenty four seven. Cousins darkly envious of other cousins. The ground is laid with trip wires and usually about three quarters in somebody trips one and...BOOM.

The firefight is usually fast and deadly. Old wounds catching fire with new oxygen. Alliances are cemented and sides drawn. The skirmish line moves back and forth and raw emotion rankles over Scrabble as people tear each other apart. And then it is over. Doors slam and muffled voices, sometimes screams coming out. And the sides huddle up. Decisions made. Someone will leave and someone will stay. And by dawn you wonder what it was all about.

But there is one less car in the driveway. One martyr note on the table. One heart terribly wronged. And there is nothing you can do really. It is the only bike you have.

www.williamhazelgrove.com