Dog Days: 03/16/12

Dog Days by Dave Ihlenfeld caught my eye at the library. The cover sports a Wienermobile parking in front of a suburban home. While I'm no fan of Oscar Mayer products and have never seen the Wienermobile in person, I was curious. I read the book on the "there's a memoir about everything" front.

Dave Ihlenfeld spent a summer after college driving a Wienermobile. Actually is it was a couple different vehicles — depending on where in the world he was (including a strange trip to Germany). Ihlenfeld outlines how piss poor the maintenance of the cars were and how expendable the driving staff was seen as from upper management. Nonetheless, he seems to have had fun and has capture the good, the bad and the ugly in an entertaining memoir.

Interspersed with his adventures are chapters on the history of the Oscar Mayer company and its fleet of Wienermobiles. These are the sections, I suppose, where readers are supposed to get all nostalgic and weepy for the whistle they had as a kid. Having never seen the cars nor the whistles, I read these sections more as a curious observer. The take away is that advertising is demented no mater what the product.

Five stars.

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