The Hot Dog That Wasn't So Hot

In Oakland Calif. there was a hot dog stand that served 12 inch, “out of this world,” hot dogs. They had their own recipe for the hot dogs and had a meat company make them according to their own specifications. They served their 12 inch dogs with mustard, tomato, onion, relish, and a 12 inch bun. The word luscious was coined to describe them.

One day the hot dog stand raised the price from 10 cents to 15 cents, and that was a big jump in price for us young boys. We boys had an extremely limited income being we usually had to hustle for our money. The difference was it now took much longer to save up for one dog. But that just made us hungrier for them.

When the day finally arrived that me and my cousin had enough money to splurge, off we would go. This particular day we could smell them dogs a cooking before we ever got to the stand.

We plopped ourselves down at the counter and placed our order. Two with everything we proudly said. About 3 minutes later the cashier handed us those succulent morsels and no one had to tell us what to do next. We savored then to the last inch.

As we left - - both I and my cousin began to feel queasy and each step we took, the feeling grew worse. My cousin reluctantly started barfing about a half block away. I took off running and with luck; I made it to a vacant lot a short distance away.

The hot dog made me feel good as it went down, but it felt a whole lot better when it abruptly came up. That day those dogs made us sick as a dog.
After that experience, I stayed away from the stand for three weeks, but finally gave in and went back again.

Over the years I never had a problem again nor did my kids, for they grew up eating and enjoying those “Casper hot dogs.”
For the majority of time, my trust in Casper’s food was rewarded with good food. Just once that trust was misplaced.

Today we are called upon to trust people in many situations and for the most part it is rewarded with a favorable outcome, but once in awhile our trust is misplaced and the result can be very severe. There is no iron clad way to totally defend ourselves from this happening. Sooner or later it can happen to everyone.

There will probably be good friends, people we respect that will try to involve us into something we won’t feel comfortable about. If (when) this happens, trust your inner feelings more than your friends and if your inner feelings tell you, “No,” or you are not certain, stop or go very slow - - for you can afford to miss a good deal more than you need to get in a bad one.

Proverbs 30:8 Remove far from vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.

Remember you are never so vulnerable as when you are greedy, for greed causes us to lose our ability to reason.