Hotdogs are made of cats
Fascists hate this one weird trick
Our young-adult offspring are great humans—a little bit of each of us and a lot of their own magic and mayhem.
They were smart little kids, but we still easily brainwashed them with fairy tales. We presented decent evidence proving the existence of The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, but the grandmas were the Easter Bunny. Sycamore balls were vampire eggs. Eating broccoli helped you climb trees, and eating carrots helped you jump like a rabbit. Reading was comfort food, drawing and making things was fun, and visiting new places was an adventure. Their personalities were their own, but we stuffed as much good stuff as we could in their brains.
Tally, the older-by-four-years kiddo figured out Santa was not real, of course, but kept the ruse alive for Shorty, the youngest. It was fun to plant evidence of cookies, red fuzz on the fireplace grate, and, one year, even footprints, glitter, and half-eaten carrots in the snow in the front yard. Shorty still trusted us.
One evening, the dad was cooking squid-dogs—a nutrition nightmare of hot dog slices pierced with raw spaghetti noodles and boiled until the noodles were soft and they looked almost like squids. (If you search for “squid dogs”, you’ll find recipes and photos quickly.)
Bored, apparently, the dad informed Shorty, "You know, hotdogs are made of cats." Shorty was impressed.
During sharing time the next day, Shorty declared to the whole kindergarten class: "Hot dogs are made of cats!"
After school, an angry kindergartener confronted an amused dad. A skeptic was born.
Shorty plays a tough long game.
After the next Christmas, kids at school were discussing wrapping paper and discovered discrepancies in Santa's wrapping-paper usage. The year after that, Shorty collected samples of Santa's paper from friends, discovered matching paper in our basement, and quite seriously presented the findings. There's no way Santa is real. Why would he use the same paper we have in the basement that you got at Target? Why is every friend's Santa paper different? The gig was up.
Still pissed about the cat hot dogs, the shrewd Sherlock Holmes wannabe stared us down with narrowed eyes, weighed the risk of admitting knowledge, and decided they would rather let us know they knew than let us continue to think they were fooled.
If only the incredibly gullible information consumer could approach life with such incredulity—willing to be the cheese and stand alone, willing to forgo gifts from the earth-bound sky daddy stand-in in pursuit of what's real and true, and willing to do a little self-study and confront authority with the tenacity of a six-year-old hell-bent on not getting duped again.
Education, tenacity, critical thinking skills, and the temerity to question authority are some of the best gifts we can give our kids.
Fascists hate that shit.
Don't give it up.
Random relish
The sauce runs strong in our house, heavy with snarcasm, spicy discussions, dry humor, and loud challenges. If you mention that hot dogs are made out of cats to this kid, you will definitely dredge up feelings from Shorty. Shocked that a parent would say something that wasn’t true, even in fun, this kid has never stopped fact checking.
I’m a bit worried about the trajectory of critical thinking around here; it feels like we’re watching it nose dive in real time. When leaders inhibit fact-finding, thinking for yourself, challenging authority, and being rational, no one wins. Except maybe that one creepy orange guy and his puppeteers. They might.
Thanks for reading. I won’t ask for money, but likes are encouraging. So are beverages and snacks.
Why Sauce Against the Machine?
“Rage against the machine” is already taken, and we have enough rage anyway. We need sauce. We need to make each day taste better. Keep our sass, our swagger, our jutted chins, and our wit and sarcasm. Get saucy. Not too much tomato sauce, though, because that’s my least favorite sauce. Butter and garlic, yeah. Maybe chocolate sauce.
Odd Wolf?
I’m not just an odd duck or a lone wolf. I’m a hybrid. I don’t need you often, but I sometimes do, and I might even like you. I’m not going to change myself a whole helluva lot to please anyone, but I do like snacks, warm fires, and some social events, so I pretend to be domesticated. I’ll own being an Odd Wolf.