I’m sitting here eating “natural frozen yogurt” at Red Mango—a trendy new dessert shop that sells all-natural yogurt in the frozen form. I’m hoping the good bacteria and probiotics that comes in cultured milk can curb the gastronomic blow-up that is currently bubbling in my tummy.

My stomach is vainly fighting a losing battle with the St. Bernard size of a hot dog I ate earlier for lunch.

For most of my body-conscience life I’ve shunned this American sausage, fearing the composition of pork butt, hooves, stomach lining and whatever other body part grinded sealed in a skin-like casing made of sheep’s intestine is the worst thing for my body and jeans size.

Many times I would haughtily fold my arms and turn up my nose to a warm hot dog offered to me, whether it be a ball game, church BBQ, or camping trip.

But about two or three years ago, in an event I can’t remember, in a moment when my hypoglycemia must have been at an all-time low, a juicy, plump frankfurter unconsciously passed my lips, and flavor of cooked swine flooded my taste buds, and I was instantly hooked.

I had no idea these hot dogs tasted so good.

From then on pork chops, ham sandwitches, and crispy bacon have become regulars in my diet. Oh, how I love my bacon crispy.

But despite the excitement of this new romance, these items have often pushed my stomach’s peaceful equilibrium off balance.

For years I avoided pork foods for their volatile risk of abhorrently high amounts of saturated fat and eclectic mash-up of what you thought were inedible body parts. But with power-packed flavor that starts my salivary glands’ engines just by thinking about it, I’ve ventured off track where my stomach juices have told me not to.

I should have listen because today they’re screaming at me, and I can ignore them no longer. After downing a six-inch hot dog covered with onions, peppers, and special sauce, my tummy is twisting and turning in a similar fashion I’d imagine Gumby would if he were tazed by a highway patrolman.

Neither carbonation nor Tums have been able to appease the horrific battle in my belly, but while clutching my stomach admist its roars of disconent, I saw an Activa commercial advertising the digestion benefits from live cultures in yogurt, I headed to the trendy yogurt shop.

So far, it’s working. The cool, smooth texture of cultured cow’s milk is neutralizing the acidic pains of indigestion while the live bacteria destroy its culprit.

No more hot dogs, please….at least until I feel better.

I wonder what it would be like to do a Drive-Thru getaway. I’m not talking about living a Boyz-in-the-Hood fantasy and running from an inner-city gang fight; I’m talking about running away from a Drive-Thru window after you placed your order.

I considered doing this the other day after I agreed to order a raspberry milkshake at Heber City’s renowned Dairy Keen. (Not a Blizzard from another burger joint with an oddly similar name.) I originally wanted a raspberry “yogurt”-shake—but when a squeaky adolescent voice told me they no longer offered frozen yogurt, I found myself in a difficult situation: do I order a normal milkshake, even though I don’t want one? Normal people would have opted for a regular milkshake (or would have just ordered it in the first place) but I’m not normal; I’m a girl. And as a girl, I worry about fat and calories and shoes and celebrity gossip and fitting into my jeans.

With no appetizing alternative on the menu, and three other cars idling impatiently in line behind me, I reluctantly agreed to a regular raspberry milkshake. But within seconds of that decision, I felt a pit land in my second as guilt set in: an ice cream milkshake at 2:00 p.m. on a meaningless Thursday wasn’t a good enough excuse for indulgence.

Although such reasoning is illogical and out-right silly to many, especially 15-32 males with high metabolisms, it wasn’t as silly as how I was trying to plan my getaway from the drive-thru line so I wouldn’t have to pay for 800 calories I don’t need.

But the real crime I was committing was thinking frozen yogurt is any better/healthier than the real thing.
Frozen yogurt has been a mystery to many since its inception in the early 90s. It was created to help fat people “think” they are choosing a healthy substitution when they are still feeding their bodies with loads of sugar and taking step closer to Type 2 diabetes. Although this misperception was caught on early by Dr. Atkins and comedy screenwriters (see Seinfeld episode #71 titled “The Non-Fat Yogurt”), the frozen dessert still fools many.

Anyway, I didn’t run. I paid the four bucks for something I took two bites of and then dumped it on the side of the road like a gangsta would dump a dead body. I quickly sped away without ever looking back.