JanDunlap.com

Last week I had a brush with destiny: I almost caught up to the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in a toll booth line in Chicago. The whole experience was surreal – being in Chicago was disorienting enough for this Minnesota gal, but throwing in the Wienermobile made my trip assume mythic proportions.

Like most people of my generation, I have the Oscar Mayer hot dog jingle permanently embedded in my brain thanks to hearing it repeatedly on television and radio while I was growing up. As a result, I still equate hot dogs with being liked. Pathetic, I know, but what can I say? “Everyone would be in love with me.” Definitely a powerful message about the value of being an Oscar Mayer hot dog. Who needs singles bars and dating services when love is waiting in the refrigerator in a convenient 8-pack of hot dogs? Yes, those jingle writers really knew what they were doing in the brainwashing department.

Consequently, I have a fond nostalgia for all things Oscar Mayer, the epitome of which I always considered to be the outrageously commercial Wienermobile. Shaped and painted to resemble one of the company’s hot dogs, with which everyone would be in love, the vehicle travels the country promoting the product, appearing at state fairs and other venues. Everywhere it goes it gets attention, making people smile and laugh, and for that reason alone, I’ve always wanted to drive the Wienermobile.

Well, that and because I just think it would be awesome to drive a car shaped like a hot dog. I mean, really, how many people get to put that on their resume? Decades from now, I could tell my grandchildren, “Yes, I drove the Wienermobile!”

So when we saw it ahead of us in the traffic in Chicago, I almost went berserk.

“Look!” I yelled to my husband and daughter. “It’s the Wienermobile!”

Of course, we were several cars behind it when I spotted it, so all they could really see was the tail end of a big bright orange sausage, which, I suppose, was not a definitive sign that we were indeed behind the Wienermobile, but I reasoned that there couldn’t be too many other vehicles designed to resemble the end of a hot dog. A moment later, my sighting was confirmed when we could make out the bottom part of the vehicle – it was the shape and color of a hot dog bun.  “Yes!” I cried. “It really IS the Wienermobile!”

“But where’s the top part of the bun?” my daughter asked. “Who eats a hot dog with only a bottom bun?”

“Nobody I know,” my husband said. “Maybe it’s a Chicago thing. Eating topless.” He pointed to a billboard advertising a strip joint.

“I don’t care if they eat naked!” I shouted. “Catch up to it!” I instructed my husband who was behind the wheel of our car. “I want to see it up close.”

But by then, the Wienermobile had cleared the toll and headed out onto the Eisenhower Expressway. Knowing how we’d probably lose sight of it in minutes in the heavy traffic, I groaned in despair.

But what I didn’t know was what driving in heavy traffic around Chicago was really like.

It was like not driving at all.

Because we weren’t.

Moving, that is.

As soon as we got onto the Eisenhower Expressway, the traffic came to a standstill.

“This is why it takes an hour to go ten miles here,” my husband commented. He gave the car some gas and we slid a foot forward before we came to another stop.

“I bet I could catch up to the Wienermobile on foot,” I said, craning my neck to spot the Oscar Mayer vehicle still ahead of us.

“You could hijack it,” my daughter suggested.

“Yes!” I shouted. “That’s a great idea! Then I could drive it all across America, and write a book about my experiences. I’ll title it ‘Life from the Wiener.’”

“Of course, you’ll be writing that memoir from prison,” my daughter pointed out.

“Yeah,” my husband added. “Kind of hard to elude law enforcement officials when you’re driving a stolen car that looks like a giant hot dog.”

I thought it over. I like to think I’m clever, but even I probably couldn’t disguise the Wienermobile enough to fool a state patrolman. Even if I put a top bun on it and threw some sauerkraut on the side – “It’s not a hot dog, officer, it’s a polish sausage.”

“Okay,” I conceded, “so maybe I won’t do the hijacking thing.”

We moved another foot forward in traffic.

“Maybe I’ll just hitch a ride for ten feet. That should take about twenty minutes, don’t you think? Then I could see the ‘bun’ roof and the condiment control panel it has inside the cockpit.”

“It’s a car, not a plane, Mom,” my daughter reminded me.

“No, it’s a giant hot dog,” my husband corrected her. “And it just exited towards downtown.”

I looked up ahead just in time to see it disappear down a ramp to the city.

“My life is over,” I moaned. “I missed my destiny.”

“It’s just a car that looks like a hot dog, Mom,” my daughter reminded me. “Certainly your destiny is bigger than that.”

I took one last longing look at the ramp the Wienermobile had taken. My daughter was right. My destiny had to be bigger than riding in a hot dog.

Hmm…there is that Goodyear blimp…