Summertime and the cooking is fine! I imagine that most people would not equate a
hotdog as fine eating, but in the summertime a charred hotdog off the grill is
a delicacy. At least it is around the
Keener household for a few of us. Nothing
beats an ice cold beer and hotdog at a baseball game. Nothing beats a hotdog off the grill at
home. ‘Tis the season for hotdogs!
Like any kid growing up, I dreamed of
being famous someday. I thought about
sports but . . . was lousy at batting in baseball and you have to be able to
hit the baseball once in a while to make it to the pros. Never gained enough weight and bulk to play
football. Basketball . . . couldn’t
dribble well enough. And, besides, less
than two percent of kids ever make it to the pros . . . I was firmly in the 98
percentile. Because of this realization
I knew that I would never be famous in sports.
The search went to other areas of life . . . scholastically, nope—not smart
enough . . . artistically, nope—I can barely draw a straight line . . .
musically—stop laughing! Just because I
cannot carry a tune in a bucket doesn’t mean I couldn’t be musically talented—but
I am not. Acting . . . nope!
So, I pretty much gave up the idea of
ever being famous until I reached middle age.
It was sometime in middle age that I discovered something that I was
semi-good at—eating. Been doing it all
of my life. I eat with the best of them
that I know . . . or at least it seems that way. I can stay at any table with anyone when it
comes to eating most anything . . . except chicken. I draw the line at chicken. The wife saturated me with chicken for years
and then one day, I woke up, and couldn’t stand chicken anymore . . . unless it
is deep fat fried with the skin on. A “no
no” according to the wife . . . a heart attack waiting to happen. I gave up on chicken.
Awhile back I heard of a new sort of
competition called “competitive eating”.
Basically competitive eating is just a bunch people who get together to
see who can eat the most of a particular food.
There I go . . . something I could do.
I can eat and with a little practice I probably would do quite well . .
. maybe even become famous. The only
question was –which food. Well, I knew
it wouldn’t be chicken. Then it dawned
on me—hotdogs! I love hotdogs and can
eat more than my fair share at one sitting.
Again, with a lot of practice I probably could compete with the best of
them. Shoot, on a good day I could
probably eat three, maybe four, hotdogs at one meal. Sounds competitive to me.
Turns out it was nothing but a
pipedream. Pictured above is Joey Chestnut. Joey Chestnut won his sixth (in a row) world
championship of eating hotdogs today at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating
World Championship on Coney Island today.
In winning his sixth straight title he consumed 68 hotdogs in ten
minutes. Sixty-eight hotdogs in ten
minutes tied his world record. I’m
impressed . . . especially when I compare it to my four hotdogs in an
hour. The man is a hotdog eating machine;
I am a rookie . . . a big rookie. He is
way out of my league. He beat his
nearest competitor by sixteen hotdogs.
That is two packages of hotdogs!
Again, I am impressed.
This information killed my dream of
being a competitive eater. When I was
thinking about becoming a competitive hotdog eater I was thinking along the
lines of maybe . . . maybe . . . a package of hotdogs in about an hour. I sure was not thinking about 68 hotdogs in
ten minutes. My tummy hurts just
thinking about it. I actually enjoy
hotdogs too much to sacrifice the joy of eating one to a mindless scarfing of
dozens upon dozens of them in a matter of minutes. That is probably the downfall of my
competitive eating career . . . a career that failed before it ever got
started. I like food for food’s sake—not
honor and glory.
. . . except the competitive side of
me still lingers in the background . . . whispering . . . “Go for something,
anything! Be a winner!”
After a couple of hotdogs the tummy
knows that it is too big of a price to pay.
I already have a tough enough time with the southern expansion . . .
eating way too many hotdogs would only add to it. With that in mind, I jiggle the belly to Joey
Chestnut and his hotdog accomplishment—salute!
I’ll stick to beating the local competition around the Keener table and
claim the title for the millionth time in a row. In the meantime I got a notice from my
insurance company telling me my health plan has been canceled . . . something
about hotdog consumption! Imagine that!
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