Wiener dogging

Or dachshunding. Bet you didn't know that either of those were verbs, did you?

I got to thinking about my good friend Hot Sauce this morning as I was getting ready for work. I wore boots today and the pair of socks I pulled out of my drawer was one she gave me a few years ago before she moved to Michigan and they were covered in wiener dogs (the socks, not my friend or Michigan).

Hot Sauce and I used to be the two single girls that worked in our division at the University, and because of that, there was a certain standard we had to live up to every weekend. More often than not, our weekends consisted of haunting an Irish pub in downtown Seattle and seeing what adventures would magically appear. There was the one time that we walked into a pajama party full of Irish and English soccer players, or the time we thought we had made a new friend with a guy only to find out he wanted to be more than friends, with both of us, at the same time. Wow, I guess whenever I think I'm at a loss for stories, I have some real "gems" I can fall back on. But one of my favorite memories of Hot Sauce is from a different night entirely.

She and I left the bar, and being the smart urban--and poorly University-employed--girls that we were, decided to forgo the cost of a cab and take the bus back to my apartment. As we stood on the bustling downtown street waiting for the number 15, carloads of guys kept driving by us honking and catcalling. At first it was flattering, but by the time the bus got there it grown quite tiresome.

After an uneventful ride, we reached our stop and had a few blocks to walk to my place. Stopped by a red light, we chatted about the night as we waited to cross the street. There was an old Cadillac in the intersection with a Rock-a-billy couple waiting to turn left. They got the arrow before we were able to cross and as they came driving by, they started to honk at us. Incredulous, both Hot Sauce and I start yapping about how people should give it a rest, we were tired of being honked at and ogled, when we realize the honking was in tune to "Shave and a Haircut." And at precisely the perfect moment, the moment when the driver should have finished his honk with two beeps, the woman in the passenger seat pulls a wiener dog out from nowhere, holds him to the window, and right on cue (and in tune) he barks out, "Two Bits."

It was so unexpected, perfect, surreal, and hilarious, that Hot Sauce and I literally fell down on the curb in laughter. The driver, the passenger, and even that wiener dog, had the biggest grins on their faces as they passed us, it was truly one of the most fantastic things ever.

We determined right then and there that we had been wiener dogged, and since that day I have been legitimately wiener dogged several more times. Granted none of those times did the dog bark on cue the response to a musical couplet, that is perhaps the penultimate wiener dogging. No, Hot Sauce and I determined that anytime you are given reason to pause and give thought to a wiener dog, you have in fact been wiener dogged. Now that I've pointed this fact out to you, you're going to be surprised how common wiener doggings are.

If you ever have the good fortune to experience an exceptional wiener dogging, cherish it. Those memories are priceless, or, well, at least worth two bits.