I am an American and I Eat Hot Dogs

Sunday, August 29th, 2004, Green Monster Seats, Fenway Park, Boston, MA

½ Monster Dog with mustard and relish, $7.75

These seats cost something ridiculous like $97. This hot dog also cost something ridiculous. At least it was big. I didn’t want to take on a whole one, so Jay and I gave it the split. I’m not sure that my half was worth $4.50, but it definitely took up space in my stomach. Deliciousness is never really a criterion for food that gets served at Fenway. We showed up early to catch batting practice home runs, but that didn’t happen. The closest we came was when someone hit a ball into a section that Jay was patrolling. He was all alone, but he ran down the wrong row of seats and some little girl ran down and got the ball first. It was pretty hilarious. The Red Sox beat the stupid Tigers.

Sunday, August 22nd, 2004, Stuckey’s, Pelham, TN

1 x Dog with Cole Slaw, $2-something

For us relatively health-conscious peoples, eating becomes difficult with all this traveling. So when the sign for Stuckey’s popped up on I-24, it seemed like a nice opportunity to at least temporarily satisfy our stomachs until we could fill them with some more natural types of food that would hopefully be available at our kind host’s condominium.

This stop-off proved to be one of the highlights of the trip, not for the dog, but rather because Stuckey’s turned out to be a purveyor of the famous Goo Goo Cluster. Our dad used to bring these back on business trips, so obviously they have that wonderful “Yay Dad’s home from a business trip and he brought presents”-sort of connotation attached to them. I loaded up. I also bought a few of their famous Pecan Divinity Rolls, which turned out to be more like a frosting bar. The dog was decent, but really, I think I could have eaten about anything at that point.

Thursday, August 19th, 2004, Frontierland, Disney World, Orlando, FL

1 x Hot Dog with mustard and relish, $4.00

The food at Disney sucks. Even the hot dogs are gross. Actually, all of the food in the entire state of Florida sucks, so there’s not reason to expect Disney to be any different. The plus side of the hot dog is that you really get the most bang for your buck. It’s at least a ¼ lb dog and you can use as many relish packets as you want. Also, it’s definitely better than the hamburger that I ate in Tomorrowland when I was 15. I still have nightmares about that one.

The best part about this day was that I got a perfect score on the Buzz Lightyear ride. I am a Galactic Hero. The hot dog, apparently, gave me the proper nutrients and energy to defend our galaxy from Zurg’s evil robot army.

Wednesday, August 11th, my parent’s backyard, Norwood, MA

1 x Deuchmaker with Grey Poupon

My mom made these because my brother had some friends over for a concert in the shed. I ate it really fast because I was in a rush. It was a hot dog with mustard. Not too exciting.