I actually grew up and lived for 50 years before I found this out. I don’t know how I could have been so dumb for so long.

I have always liked hot dogs. Ignoring that they are, in reality, small tubes of throw away meat, like lips, and udders, and ears, and buttholes, from the pig or cow, and just awful for your health, full of fat for clogging your arteries, and bringing nitrates into your body so you can live longer but suffer for your added life, they just taste great. I ate them regularly for my whole childhood. In Boy Scouts, church picnics, family gatherings, Peace Corps training, they were almost ubiquitous.

Hot dogs are long and round, and sit real nice on a grill, wedged between the tines of the grill. You flip them one tine left, then again, and once more, and you have an evenly grilled meat like object. So, even if your grill is on uneven ground, they won’t roll off, if placed properly.

Hot dogs are easy to eat and hold, and you don’t need a fork, or even a plate, to eat them. They have buns that are specially made just for them. And when you put mustard and ketchup and pickle relish on them, they are pretty to look at. They look like the flag of Bolivia, or Vanauatu, or Myanmar, with the red, yellow, and green stripes. I could cook a lot of hot dogs on my little propane grill, that I always took with me to Mexico, in a short time, without a bunch of peripheral cooking utensils.

So, I was ready to leap gracefully into my Ford F-150 chariot, and tool on down to Soriana Supermarket in Rio Bravo, Mexico and buy a family pack of dogs, and a bottle of ketchup, and mustard, and relish, and some hot dog buns. It was comin on noon, And I was ready to take a lunch break from working on the Community Center that we were building. A lot of kids had showed up to help, and I had kept them working all morning, alongside my 10 volunteers who had driven down from Austin to help me. They were all hungry. I took a poll, in English, of the volunteers, and everybody was groovy with hotdogs. I couldn’t imagine the kids turning down free food, and though I asked them, they didn’t really answer. They just wanted to go with me to the store.

A big glob of them jumped into my truck, and off we went. As we walked into Soriannas, I was walking beside Nereyda. She was a local girl who always came to help on the projects in Rio Bravo, when we would show up twice a year to work. I liked her. She talked to me like an equal, not up, like talking to a parent, or down like talking to somebody you disapprove of. She was very mature for a girl of 11 years. She looked up at me. Because I was taller.

Nereyda: I have to talk to you about something, Samuel.

Me: OK, what’s up? You look serious.

Nereyda: You shouldn’t buy hop dogs like you were saying.

Me: I shouldn’t? Why shouldn’t I? Don’t you like them?

Nereyda: Oh, I love hop dogs.

Me: Me too, with ketchup and mustard!

She looked at me like I had just said something in a different launguage. I was speaking in Spanish, but I knew that , “yo tambien me gusta los hop dogs, con catsup y mostasa!” meant, I also like hot dogs with ketchup and mustard.

Nereyda: But you shouldn’t buy any now.

Me: I shouldn’t? Why in the world not? (I glanced furtively around, in case there were hop dog police or somebody waiting to jump out and arrest me.)

Nereyda: Because, Samuel, hop dogs are for the night.

Me: Huh?

Nereyda: Yes, Samuel, they are for the night. And now it is day.

Me: But hop dogs are good any time. 

Nereyda: But they are for the night.

Me: why is that, Nereyda? Why are they for the night?

Nereyda: Because that is when you eat them. In the night. And not with mostasa or catsup. With mayonnaise. And in the night.

Me: Um, ok. Then let us buy bread and sandwich makings. People are hungry, I must feed them. And some bananas and oranges.

Nereyda: That is a good idea, Samuel.

So we did. And we went back to the community center, and made sandwiches for everybody. Peanut butter and grape jelly, and bologna and cheese. White bread (ick). And bananas and oranges.

So now I know. Hop dogs are for the night, because that is when you eat them. With mayonnaise. I have a college degree. I should have known that. Duh!

Child honesty . 

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Never fails. Never.