Do You Have Any Idea What’s In That Hot Dog?

By Bill Yanger

Another in a continuing series of imagined conversations over coffee at the Rod & Reel Pier. Any resemblance to persons or personalities, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and mostly unintended.

Good morning.

Hey buddy.

Feeling better? You were pretty blue the other day.

Oh I’m over it. Just trying to focus on things that…you know…things that make me smile.

That make you smile…okay…Like Bean Point?

Yes, actually…took your advise. Right at sunrise. That place always seems to right me when I’m listing. Even caught a couple mackerel with my favorite little feather jig. Walked home and fried one up for breakfast with some cheese grits. Sliced a fat-daddy Ruskin tomato, splashed it with a little balsamic vinegar. Squeezed a glass of tangerine juice…nothing better. Back at the helm.

Love your cheese grits. Some reason you wanted to meet later for lunch today instead of coffee?

Not really, just had some things to do this morning.

Like what?



Nothing… tell ya later.

Right. Later. Okay then Mr. Mysterious, what are you gonna have for lunch? Or is that a state secret too?

What are you ordering?

Think I’ll have a nice chunk of blackened Mahi.

The hot dog for me.

A hot dog?

Yeah, a hot dog. Why are you making that face? I like hot dogs.

Have you ever seen how they make those things?

So now you’re a food cop?

You just described the nirvana of breakfasts…you’re sitting in a joint with some of the best seafood in Florida…and you want to eat the processed equivalent of the slimy catfish that kid over there just reeled in?

Don’t care how they’re made.

Ever take the time to read the nutrition label to see what’s in those things?

Don’t care what’s in ‘em. I can’t understand half of what’s on the nutrition label anyway.

So you’ll just sit there in blissful gastronomic ignorance while your heart seizes up and your gut rots away even though with a little effort and thought you could find out why those things’ll kill you.

What’s the point?

You’re content to wake up one day and find out all that mystery meat has turned your body into a garbage dump? My god, does anyone care about anything anymore?

Wow dude. It’s just a friggin’ hot dog.

Sure, it’s just a hot dog to you. But it seems like an epidemic. The same damn thing is happening down at City Hall.

They’re eating too many hotdogs, too?

No, genius. But a lot of people in this town seem to be sitting around in that same blissful trance devouring the junk they’re being fed by the Mayor, the P&Z, the City lawyer and that nest of developer lawyers. People don’t seem to care what’s in the site plans or about density or parking and they could give two slimy catfish for any law, new or old, that tries to control any of those things. Like that nutrition label you avoid, they ignore the stuff in an ordinance, the process that put it there and what it all does to them cuz they think they won’t understand it anyway. They’d rather not hear about the dirty little secrets, the sticky mystery meat of local politics, the wink-winks from developers and their lawyers and the nod-nods from the elected, the appointed and all their paid advisers. And they're gonna wake up one day and not recognize their city.

Where’d all this come from?

Guess you haven’t heard.

Heard what?

The P&Z stumbled, bumbled and cowered their way to approving a new site plan on Pine the other night.

I knew it was coming up but I assumed enough of that board had the simple common sense to realize what a mistake it’d be to approve anything under laws everyone is trying to change.

Well, from what I hear, the tall bald P&Z guy, first he got elected as Chairman, then those in attendance were treated to his vision of Pine Avenue circa 2030...had an architect, a big ol’ drawing and even a fancy name for it all. It seemed like Government under the Big Top, complete with a ringmaster and clowns.

Huh? Was this “vision” thingy on the agenda?

Nope, but who needs an agenda when you got the gavel right? After that strange dog and pony skit, the fun started. He got manhandled by PAR’s lady lawyer before he’d read the instructions on how to actually use a gavel. She, the lawyer, was way out of line and out of order and some thought unlawyerly. Not sure I’d want my lawyer looking so publicly…uh…so… well I hear it was embarrassing…for the new Chairman and the lady lawyer…but hey, guess it worked.

Too bad it wasn’t on TV. People need to see crap like that or they’ll never believe it really happened.

Words can’t express it.

Bet it won’t make the papers, least not what really happened. So where was the City lawyer while the Chairman and this lady were embarrassing themselves?

Good question. Funny thing is, even though he…the City lawyer…thought it was necessary to waste time battering the older P&Z lady about questions from her neighbors, he sat on his thumbs while the lady lawyer did her faux-outrage fox trot….he could’ve and should’ve advised the newbie Chairman to gavel her back to her seat but didn’t…maybe that wink-wink nod-nod thing again…I don’t know. I do know that in spite of sage words from two of its veteran board members urging restraint, the P&Z, especially the new Chairman, buckled like a wet shoe box and gave PAR what they wanted.

Hold on. A month ago he said on the record that P&Z should not be approving site plans…and now that he has a gavel he votes to approve one? What the hell is that?

Funny things happen on the way to a quorum…that sticky mystery meat of local politics, remember? By the way, the other three votes for approval were no surprise. The ex-Commissioner, the City Commissioner’s daughter and the orange juice guy, you know, the Mayor’s old crony from her Temple Terrace days… all three said on the record last month that they want P&Z to keep its control over site plans and they’ve already got their “I ♥ PAR” t-shirts so they toed the company line.

PAR has T-shirts?

Oy. Anyway, someone told me the most frightening moment was when the P&Z lady, you know, the City Commissioner’s daughter who thinks handicap parking on Pine is passé? Well, she nonchalantly mentioned that if down the line some judge says they screwed up and the site plan violates the comp plan, then PAR will just have to tear down whatever they build. She was kinda like “Eh, no biggy.” Then she voted for it, of course, ignoring that the dollars paying for her “no biggy” will be yanked right out of our pockets.

She actually said that? You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Nope. Even the PAR guy with the red bike had to be squirming about that little gem of critical thinking. Probably wondering something like “Oh lord, that lady is voting for my site plan not because it’s right but because she thinks they can just tear my building down if she’s wrong? And what if she is wrong? Gulp.”

Guess he’ll take votes anyway he can get ‘em. Maybe he just wants to be able to say “Nanny-nanny boo-boo” to us all.

Doubt that. An expensive little exercise just to gloat. Can’t really fault him for playing the system like a church organ on Sunday. But thank your government for lettin’ him.

But people should know about all these crazy things…the cowering gavel-challenged P&Z Chairman, the shifty lady lawyer, our mute City lawyer, the Mayor’s parade of cronies and the twisted logic that goes into some of their decisions…these are things that influence the property values and the quality of this town. You’re right, people here do need to care more about things that affect them.

Like what’s in a hot dog?

Yeah…well…I think I’ll have the blackened Mahi instead.

Hah!

But I gotta take it to go.

What?

Running behind.

For what?

Nothing. Tell you later.

Your nothing’s turning into a something. Will you tell me about your nothing tomorrow?

Yeah, tomorrow.



© 2010 – William L. Yanger