An excellent specimen of the pervasive species known as Barricadus Robertus.
One of the best deals you’ll find at Costco is their food court’s quarter-pound hot dog and refillable 20-ounce drink, which sells for a mere $1.50. The price has remained unchanged since 1984, when they first sold them as a trial run for their food service, and counter to what you’d expect for something that sells at the same price for decades, both the hot dog and the drink are larger than the original.
One of the reasons why they’ve never increased the price of the dog is a directive from Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal. When discussing the subject with current CEO Craig Jelinek, who said they were losing money on each sale of the dog-and-drink combo, he replied:
“If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.”
Compared to the money that Costco makes, the money they lose on the hot dog combo is a rounding error, and with the goodwill that buys, they might as well consider it a marketing expense with a nice rate of return. Even so, they’ve still taken some measures to reduce their costs without reducing quality by switching away from their original hot dog supplier, Hebrew National, and making their own, and by cutting a deal with Pepsi for the drinks.
People are (rightfully) suspicious of free stuff.
You might wonder why Costco simply doesn’t make the hot dog and drink combo free instead of charging a ridiculously low fee for it, especially since it’s a members-only store. My feeling is that if the combo was free, it would quickly become an abused privilege. The $1.50 barrier, low as it is, prevents Costco shoppers from going overboard, and may even give the combo an air of legitimacy that it might not have if it was free.
Although the hot dog deal’s been around for almost 35 years, there’s been a recent spate of interest in it, as evidenced by these articles:
- The Enduring Enigma of Costco’s $1.50 Hot Dog and Soda Combo (MentalFloss.com, June 8, 2018)
- Costco loses money every time it sells a $1.50 hot dog and doesn’t care (The Takeout, April 11, 2018)
- Why Costco food courts have charged $1.50 for hot dogs since 1985, according to employees (Business Insider, April 10, 2018)
- The real reason a Costco hot dog costs only $1.50 (Business Insider, April 4, 2018)
- The Story Behind Costco’s $1.50 Hot Dog Deal (Kitchn.com, February 27, 2018)
Here’s the money quote from the interview in the video above, with emphasis added by me:
“We have thousands of people that have asked for that. Thousands and thousands of people. So many people asked when I was on the campaign; I’d say ‘Wait a minute, I don’t have any relationship’, but they said, ‘When you can, President, we’d love our son to be brought back home.’”
Time for some history and math!
The Korean War ran from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953. Readers who grew up in the 1970s may think it ran longer, but that’s because of the TV series M*A*S*H, which was set during that war, ran from 1972 to 1983, nearly four times as long.
Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor feeds a 2-week-old kitten named Miss Hap after her mother had been killed during a mortar attack in Korea. Click the photo to see the source.
Suppose the youngest of soldiers was recruited and sent to Korea in the last days of the war, when he was killed. At the age of 18, that puts his birth year at 1935.
Dean Martin — possibly sober — in 1918. Click the photo to see the source.
Suppose his parents were also 18 when he was born, which wouldn’t have been too out of the ordinary back then. That puts their birth year at 1917, which would make them 101 years old today, or 100 if their birthdays take place later this year.
Now remember, Trump said that thousands of these parents have asked for their sons’ remains to be sent home. Thousands of people who at least 100 years old.
Now, let’s consider Trump’s rather casual relationship with the truth, but at the same time, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Suppose what he’s saying is true, and that these parents exist, but he exaggerated their number. If we take those thousands and reduce their number by 90%, that would mean there are still hundreds of these 100-year-old parents of Korean MIAs.
Even if we took that number of parents and reduced that number by 90%, there’d still be dozens of these centenarians looking to bring their sons home.
Even if there were a single dozen of these 100+ year old parents, never mind thousands, they’d be in the news. In fact, given Trump’s ego, he’d trot them out in front the cameras.
Gator mating season takes place in May and June in Florida, and you have to be a little more careful. A woman in Davie (inside Miami’s metropolitan area) was killed by a twelve-foot gator last weekend.
The usual gator advice applies:
- Never feed alligators. Feeding them causes them to lose their natural wariness of humans and teaches them to associate humans with food.
- Don’t toss fish scraps (or any other food) into the water. Put them in garbage cans; otherwise, you’re just feeding the gators.
- Seek medical attention if you have been bitten. Sometimes you have to state the obvious.
- Watch and take pictures of gators from a safe distance. They’re quicker than they look.
Trump’s the kind of guy who thinks the Hooters waitress likes him.
The result of the unneccesarily bromance-y Trump-Kim talks was an extremely vaguely-worded agreement that’s weaker than the one from the “Six Party Talks” of 2005, and in return, the US is halting joint military exercises with South Korea, which is one of the primary ways that “Naughty Korea” can be kept in check.
In short, here’s a scene from The Simpsons that summarizes the deal (and in case you were wondering, Trump is Homer Simpson in this scenario):
In the meantime, Trump has pledged to punish “the people of Canada” economically because of the post-G7 news conference in which Trudeau criticized Trump’s tariffs:
“That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. I actually like Justin, you know, I think he’s good, I like him, but he shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake. That’s going to cost him a lot of money.”
Cozying up to lying, murderous dictators who flatter him, while threatening a staunch ally and loyal trading partner going back centuries. That’ll end well for everyone.
In a time when the president of the United States is slandering Canada — its biggest trading partner and close ally — as a security threat, it’s important to have reminders such as this.
This was broadcast on NBC just before the 2010 Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies in Vancouver, Canada on February 12, 2010.
Click the meme to see it at full size.