Every year around this time I start thinking about dachshunds. I know that isn’t typically what most people think about at Christmas. When I was a little girl my mom was fixing hot dogs for lunch and I saw a picture of a dog on the hot dog wrapper. I asked her what it was about, she told me “that fool company is havin' a contest and they is givin’ way a wiener dog”.(said in a heavy southern accent) I put the wrapper in my pocket and that night I questioned my grandmother more about it. I knew it was silly to ask my mother as she has a intense hatred for pets, dogs I particular.
Grandmother read the contest rules to me and we sent that wrapper in with my name and grandmas address. She told me that you can enter the contest every time you have hot dogs and send in the wrapper from the package. I had decided I wanted that wiener dog. Oh, I wanted him bad. I was going to do everything I could to win that wiener dog. It was all I could think about. For the next few months, I went door to door asking people if they would be eating any hot dogs from “that famous hot dog company” and would they save their wrappers as I was trying to win that wiener dog. People were very generous in saving hot dog package labels for me at times there were so many coming in; I thought the entire town was helping me on my mission “To win that wiener dog”. I had so many wrappers collected, there were days we had several to send in at a time. My grandmother filled out the information needed and funded the postage to send in the contest form. We had agreed that it was our secret between the two of us that we needed to keep from my mom knowing what we were doing.
My focus for three months was all about that dachshund dog prize. I went to the library for books on dog care and my grandma would read them to me as a bedtime story. At night kneeling at my bed, I concluded my prayers, “Please Dear Sweet Jesus, let me win that wiener dog”.
The following spring a delivery truck stopped at our house and a man came out said he was looking for a girl named Patty, he was carrying a wooden crate with my name on it. Inside the crate was a small brown wiener dog. He told my mother, “Your daughter has won a contest and here is her prize - this here wiener dog”. My mother pitched a fit never to have seen before; she did everything to get that man to take the dog back. He informed her that he only makes the delivery and can’t return the dog. She was so angry. That week she tried everything she could do to get someone to take that dog from our house. She cussed that dog for months. Over the years, she never warmed up to the dog and would launch into a tirade about filthy dogs should not be house pets and we were all probably come down with some incurable disease with that mangy mutt in the house. That flea bitten dog may even try to kill us in the night.
To this day, I do not know if I actually won that contest for a wiener dog or if my grandmother purchased the dog and set the delivery man up to say that I had won the contest. I strongly suspect grandma was behind the arrival of my wiener dog. She would never admit to it. That does not matter because what it gave me was the optimism that dreams and wishes really can come true. It may mean lots of hard work and door to door canvassing for hot dog wrappers but dreams are within our grasp. We just need to know what our dreams are, dream big enough and then go after them.
Thank you grandma for instilling in me the optimism of wishful thinking and making me believe that all things in life are possible.
One last thing, I am sure my mom was directly instrumental in getting the addition of a disclaimer in the fine print of all contests that you must be 18 years or older to participate in any contest or sweepstakes. She never learned to like that dog.
Me with my wiener dog, I would read bed time stories to him. His favorite book was “Green Eggs and Ham
I end this year of blogging with big thanks for you all that follow me in this blog and I will see ya’ll next year.
I am sending you all the best for a Happy New Year filled with dreams, wishes and hopes.
**I will resume regualr blogging after the holidays**
