Something a little less brainy

Today's post won't tax your brain like the last one did. Trying to think of titles of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories for a fill-in-the-blanks quiz isn't all that easy. Today's post will be easy on the grey matter.

By the way, the titles I had in mind were The Gold Bug, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, and The Fall of the House of Usher. No less a personage than the bard of Sheffield, old Yorkshire Pudding himself, who claims to have taught English for 30 years, could name only one of them.

Anyway, for something a little lighter, I recommend that you read "What's the Best Hot Dog in America? We Tried 15 Popular Brands to Find Out"

I know that hot dogs are not good for you. I know they contain nitrates. I don't care. I eat them anyway. It can now be revealed that I have never liked Oscar Mayer hot dogs, which came in at #3 in the article. For years, Ball Park All-Beef Franks, which tied at #9, were what we consumed at our house. A couple of years ago, pursuing the thought that kosher hot dogs had to be better than non-kosher ones, we switched to Nathan's Angus Beef Franks. In so doing, we unknowingly switched from #9 to #2 among American hot dogs.

Given the cross-section of people who comment on this blog, I would like to know what kind of hot dogs Canadians and Australians and people in the U.K. eat. Not you personally, if hot dogs are not your cup of tea (a mixed metaphor if there ever was one), but what your countrymen and/or countrywomen eat. Yes, I am curious, red, white, and blue.

When we are in a decadent mood and feel lke throwing caution to the winds, Mrs. RWP likes sauerkraut on her hot dogs and I like chili, cheese, and onions on mine. Fortunately for our digestive systems and overall health, neither of us has been in a decadent mood in a very long time.

But that is probably a topic best pursued in a separate post.

Don't hold your breath.

I beg to differ

I have before me a monthly magazine that shall remain nameless. Each issue is devoted to making every reader (and if the magazine subscription gurus play their cards right, that includes you and me) feel really bad about the food he or she chooses to put in his or her mouth.

Strange way to run a railroad.

More important, however, is the fact that I have caught the magazine telling an outright lie.

It says right here in black and white that the risk of dying is lowest in people who eat the least red meat (the equivalent of 1-1/2 Quarter Pounders* a week) or processed meat (the equivalent of 1 hot dog** every week or two.)

That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard read.

This is not to say that what we eat doesn’t affect our health or our clothing size or even our longevity, but the risk of dying is not lowest in people who eat the least red meat (the equivalent of 1-1/2 Quarter Pounders a week) or processed meat (the equivalent of 1 hot dog every week or two).

I beg to differ. Friends, the risk of dying is exactly the same in each and every person on the face of the earth, and it has very little -- okay, nothing -- to do with what anyone chooses to eat.

Don’t believe me? Stay with me for a few more sentences.

The last time I checked, the mortality rate was exactly the same as it has always been. The mortality rate, dear reader, for the entire human race is one death per person. If my math is correct, that works out to 100 per cent.

So if you are a person (and if you are reading this, I fervently hope you are), face it, you are going to die one day, unless your car has a bumper sticker that includes the word “Rapture” and even then the chances are still good. Perhaps not today and perhaps not tomorrow, but eventually. The when part remains uncertain and can definitely be delayed through good lifestyle choices, but the whether part, I regret to inform you, is not in question.

Not now. Not ever.

This has been another public service announcement from Rhymeswithplague Enterprises, Inc.

* If you live where McDonald’s have never erected their golden arches, Quarter Pounders are hamburgers. And if you don’t, they still are.

** Next they’ll be telling us that 1 hot dog = 3.14159 slices of bologna, but who really cares?