Before I get into the meat of my ire today, I’d like to point out that I’ve added links to the websites of some of my friends. Visit them and enjoy their weirdness for all that it is. Maybe if you visit Idoru enough Mr. P will actually put something up there.

Yesterday’s blog was the first in the history of Confessions of a Geek that warrants a follow up discussion. No, I will not discuss the further adventures of Tooth Brush Man (who is currently taking on the Paper Towel industry for making rolls that have different counts of sheets). Rather, I think it’s time we uncover the horror that is the Hot Dog and Bun cartels.

Oh yes. Cartel.

Many comics have pointed out in the past that hot dogs and buns are available in different quantiies. One may think this is a ploy by both industries for you to buy high quantities of both products in order to correct the disparity. It would be foolish of you to think such a thing.

No, this is an all out war between the two industries. A war that may never end.

Back in 1904, the two industries worked hand in hand. Together, the bakers and the sausage makers forged two empires across the plains of America. They fed the average American’s hunger for processed, highly sodium injected, cow lips and anuses.

Peace between the two camps reigned for ages. Until 1973. That was when Phineas T. Barker, hot dog bun magnate, introduced the eight bun-per-package product that has become the mainstay of the industry. He dropped the price of each package by a paltry sum and managed to eek out additional profit from the fattened, baseball addled consumers.

(Rumor has it that it was a case of infidelity. In the ultimate irony, Baker’s wife had been found in the arms of hot dog czar, Charlie Freedle.)

The hot dog industry had no recourse. They knew they were backed into a corner. They knew it would take five packages of buns to match their four packages. But, there was no way they could change their dog count without cutting into profits.

In 1986, a tubular engineer at Oscar Meyer made a major structural break through. He found it was possible to increase the length of a hot dog without changing the circumference and still retain structural meat integrity. He called it, “The Bun-Length Hot Dog.” Oscar Meyer paid him greatly for his invention, placed a bas-relief of his face next to that of the man who invented the cheese injection process and he retired to a sunny beach in Florida.

But all would not remain rosy in the world of hot dogs. Soon the bun industry figured out a way to increase the length of their buns without sacrificing net weight. As an added bonus, they created what is known in the industry as the “Bun Mop”. That is the little flap of extra bread that is attached to each bun. With this addition, consumers could easily clean up any condiments that fell outside of the bun “load zone”.

Once again, the bun was longer than the dog. The cart was leading the horse.

It has been a long time since the longer than dog bun was released to the public. And yet, there has been no response from the meat industry. Why? Where are the clever meat engineers? Have they gone the way of the buffalo? Are they no longer working in beef by-products? Have they moved on?

Or is it something worse? Perhaps we have reached the outer limits of hot dog lengthening technology.

I, for one, will be watching these two industries closely. Something must break. It has been nearly two decades since the bun industry fired a shot across the bow of the hot doc industry.

The two cannot remain silent for long.