There was this hot dog vendor who sold hot dogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.
But, enthusiastically, he sold lots of hot dogs. His sales and profit went up. He used only the finest wieners and the freshest buns. People came from miles around to eat his hot dogs. All day long, the hot dog vendor would sing beautiful songs and sell his hot dogs.
He ordered more meat and got himself a bigger and better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.
Then something strange happened. The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?” The hot dog vendor replied, "No, but tell me about it.” The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic condition is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad time."
The hot dog vendor thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, and listened to radio, he ought to know and that his advice was not to be taken lightly. So, the next day, the hot dog vendor cut down his order for the meat and buns, took down the sign, and was no longer enthusiastic.
Business got worse and the hot dog vendor stopped singing.
Very often, he ran out of wieners and buns so his customers had nothing to buy when they stopped by his stand and had to take their business elsewhere.
Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand and his sales started coming down rapidly. He again cut his orders, switched to lower quality wieners, and used cheaper buns.
Business dropped even still and he stopped being friendly with his customers and talked only about how bad business was with the few remaining customers he had, which reminded them of how bad things were and made them begin to think that they, too, should cut back on their spending.
Soon the hot dog vendor was ordering so few wieners and so few buns that he did not have anything to sell to the very few remaining customers he had, so he closed the hot dog stand.
The hot dog vendor said to his son, "Son, you were right. We are in the middle of a recession. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."
The Moral of The Story
Never engage in self-defeating patterns of behavior. If you think that you will fail, or always only expect the negative or worst, nothing in this world can save you.
The preceding story was posted on the wall at my family’s Western Auto Store in Iva, South Carolina.
My child-bride Suzanne just told me about a new blog she just read called Creative Therapy, where a new mommy (her child is 15 weeks old) has started a series of posts regarding taking care of a newborn.
Wow, this takes me back nearly 30 years. It will be 30 years this coming 5 June. That is the day Suzanne, we call her Moogie now, and I became parents of an out in the world baby. Of course, we actually became parents approximately 40 weeks before.
We knew almost from the second of conception that Suzanne was pregnant. We just had the feeling. The feeling was followed up by Suzanne throwing up, a lot.
For most of the first trimester, Suzanne could not keep anything on her stomach. She threw up everything. She even blew chunks of steak out her nose during a cookout we were having. Thanks, Roger.
On one occasion, Suzanne became so dehydrated that she had to be sent to the emergency room straight from the doctors’ office to get IV fluids.
Suzanne and I had seen Halloween II back when we were dating and the killer, Michael Myers, kills one of his victims by draining all of their blood out of their body by using the IV tubing.
Suzanne’s first tank of “IV” ran out and blood began backing up the tube. She began to have a panic attack and I shut off the IV flow and went to get a nurse. When I went up to the nurses’ station, the nurse said, “Someone will be right there.”
I then grabbed the nurse by the arm and said, “NO, you will come now.” The security guard was standing right there and I turned to him and said, “You can arrest me in a minute, but right now if you get in my way, I will kill you.” (Note here that the guard was actually a friend of mine.) I drug the nurse by the arm to the room where Suzanne was. The security guard said nothing.
Fast forward to the many, many times we went to the OB/GYN floor at the hospital with Braxton Hicks contractions. Then, finally, the big day arrived. Suzanne passed the mucus plug while we were at work. We finished the day and she and I headed to the hospital in a very calm way.
Before this time, I was sure I was going to go nuts and not be able to find my car keys. I figured I would not be able to get the car started or it would run out of gas.
I am a former Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and was well trained in emergency child birth, but I figured this time would be different. I kept an OB Kit in each car.
I made sure that both cars were always full of gas and backed in the carport every night. I had multiple sets of keys to both cars made. We had a bag packed for the hospital in both cars.
We calmly drove towards the hospital. We passed Suzanne’s mother and sister and I turned the car around to tell them we were going to the hospital. Suzanne then said that we should stop and get a hamburger at Burger King because she would not be able to eat until after the baby was born. So, we stopped at Burger King and got two triple meat, triple cheese Whoppers. Our parents beat us to the hospital. They were not amused that we had stopped.
Day turned into night, night turned into day. Suzanne is very introverted. The very last thing she wants to do is to call attention to herself. Well, about an ten-thirty AM or so, a teaching doctor came in the birthing room and asked if we would mind if about thirty student nurses came in to watch the birth. I was just getting ready to say no when Suzanne said, “Sure let them all come on in.”
I was surprised to hear this from her, but childbirth does strange things. Was this the same woman who, just a few hours before, said that my parents were never married?
The student nurses were due in class at 11:30 AM. Several left to get to class on time. Many stayed. Jared popped out at 11:29 AM on his due date, 5 June 1986. He was going to hold out until exactly noon to make for perfect timing, but he gave in for the nurses. He always did like an audience.
Dr. Henry Hearn was the one to deliver this 8 pound 8 ounce bundle of all boy. He told me after the fact that he was very surprised that Suzanne, as small as she was, was able to birth such a chunk.
He further told me that he had an emergency team ready in the hall to come for an emergency C-section. In addition to that, he had a tool that looked very much like a clear toilet plunger to use to get the baby out.
Dr. Hearn said that Suzanne was the best Lamaze student he had ever seen. He said she did perfectly.
When Jared was born, we made sure he had the best of everything. He had name brand Pampers. He had bottle warmers. We had every type of contraption made for a baby. His crib was the best we could find. He had not one, but four different strollers. He had a crib at my parent’s house which was just up the hill from ours. Actually, he and his cousin Patrick shared that one.
We read everything we could get our hands on about being perfect parents. We heated his food to the recommended temperature. We made sure we had the best of everything for him. We thought we were the perfect parents when, in fact, we were amateurs.
I realized this just after our fifth baby was born. She was the fourth that we got to keep. Jesus needed Dorian Lee, our number three child.
When you are on your first child, you pack the entire house to go anyplace. If you are going to Grandma’s house for two hours, you take four completely loaded diaper bags, a portable crib, a play pen, multiple changes of clothes, and hundreds of diapers. Grandma’s house is in the back yard.
When you get ready to go to church with numbers four and five, Daddy sticks two diapers for number four in his left back pocket, two for number five in his right back pocket, one bottle for each baby in his front two pockets, and takes a couple of burp pads and out the door they go.
When the first born child is diapered, he wears top of the line Pampers. When the second child is born, she wears the second most expensive diapers, Huggies. When number four came along, we used the Walmart brand, Parent’s Choice. When number five came along, newspaper. Really, we used newspaper.
Well, only once. There was this place in Williamston, South Carolina, where we loved to go to get hot dogs. We called it “The Dump” because we would park our car by the dumpster and go in and order roller grill hot dogs. We would eat while parked at the dumpster, hence the name the Dump.
One day we were at the dump and our youngest child, Maggie, was standing on the front seat. Suzanne noticed something dripping down Maggie’s legs and I said, "It looks like chili.”
Suzanne sniffed and said, “That’s not chili.” We were so used to being able to go out without having to change our angel baby that neither of us had thought anything of leaving the house without any diapers or baby wipes.
I went into the store to see if they had any diapers. They did not. I bought some paper towel and the local newspaper. We had a roll of duct tape in the car. We fashioned a diaper out of newspaper and Duct Tape and headed home.
We would have died had this happened with the first child. We had to sterilize everything before he could touch it. By the time Maggie came along, the fifteen second rule applied.
What about you? Do you have any interesting baby stories you care to share? If so, drop us a line or make a comment on this blog.
back when we were dating and the killer, Michael Myers, kills one of his victims by draining all of their blood out of their body by using the IV tubing. 
in each car.
and headed home.