Wiener Conundrum

About twice a year, I develop a craving for chili dogs – wieners in buns topped with chili and diced onion. When I go to the store to buy chili dog fixings, there are a confusing number of decisions to be made in selecting a package of wieners. First of all there are all the various brands, with each brand proclaiming its distinctiveness. Then there are the various types of wiener: all-beef, chicken & turkey, kosher/non-kosher, etc. And on top of those choices, stores now have to stock regular and bun-length wieners.

Regular and  bun-length! It begs the question, “Why not make the bun the correct length to fit the wiener to begin with?” Then the store wouldn’t need to stock wieners in two lengths. Problem solved.

Maybe the bun people and the wiener people are not speaking to each other. I decided that for a proper article, I should do a little research and find out what’s going on. So I did. It turns out that the bun people are using English measurements while the wiener people are using metric measurements. No wonder they’re not compatible!

I’m kidding, of course. No one in America uses metric measurements. But I did learn something. Suppose you want to buy wieners that are as long as the bun they’ll be put into. Should you buy regular wieners or bun-length wieners? You may be thinking, “Why, bun-length, of course.”

But you’d be wrong. Regular wieners are actually as long as a regular hotdog bun. On the other hand, bun-length wieners are actually longer than the bun; they poke out of the bun a little bit at each end. They should really be called little-bit-longer-than-the-bun-wieners, but that’s probably too many words to fit on the label.

And I haven’t even touched on another vexing problem. My package of wieners held 10 wieners, whereas my package of buns held 8 buns. I’ve always wondered about this, and I have a theory. I think the extra wieners are for when you drop a wiener or two on the floor. After all, they’re wet and slippery little buggers and, when dropped on the kitchen floor, are apt to roll under the fridge or through the kitchen door and under the dining room table. The extra wieners also make good “table scraps” for Rover (and possibly Ginger, though I’m not sure a cat would eat a wiener – they’re fussy creatures).

My theory unfortunately does not explain the thinking behind one company’s policy of putting 7 wieners into each package. No bakery will ever market a 7-count pack of buns. It’s like the wiener people are being non-standard just for spite.

And that is why I make chili dogs only once or twice a year. It’s just too complicated.