Marco Huertas - An Extra Hotdog

 

So, I was perhaps 16 years old, living in Guatemala. That's where I grew up. I was raised in a lower middle-class family. My dad was an accountant, my mom stayed at home. But she always found ways of making money cooking, or sewing, or doing something like that. So, they always provided for us. But we didn't have extra money for things that we wanted to buy, like allowance or something like that. So, they encouraged us to find ways of getting money. You can wash a car, get at the grocery store, or something like that. So, the way I did it is, I was very good in math, and so I became a tutor for kids. So, I helped them with their algebra and stuff like that. And that's how I made money. But of course, the money that I made was just for me. I didn't have to really use that money to help support my family or anything like that. 

 

So, around that time, a lot of the gas stations, very close to where I was living in Guatemala, were changing. They started selling more American food. They had nachos with cheese, and they had these sodas and chips and all that stuff. And as a teenager in a third world country, you say, "Oh, American food, I have to try that." And of course, I had some money to do it. So, one day, I saw that there was this gas station where they were selling these huge hot dogs, which I really liked. And so, I said, "Okay, I'm going to go and buy one." 

 

So, I went and I didn't get one, of course, right? I got two. And they were huge. Big bun, sausage, chili, the works, everything in there. So, I came out of the store with one hot dog in one hand, the other one, I started eating. As I was walking on the street away from the gas station, I saw this man coming towards me. He was walking with a kid. He was perhaps, I don't know, 10, 11 years old. As they approached and they went past by me, the kid looked at me. And of course, he looked at the hot dogs. And of course, from the way they were dressed, I quickly picked up that they were a poverty-stricken family. They were poor. Most likely the kid was working with his dad, so he might be his assistant or something like that.

 

So, the kid looked at me and said, "Wow, these are great. Where did you get them?" And I said, "Oh, you can get them at the gas station." So, he looked at his dad and like, "Can we get one?" I turned and looked at the dad and the dad had this face, "We cannot afford something like that." So, at that point, I can assure you that I heard a voice in my head, something like, "Come on, man, you have two, right? You just need one. You don't need two, one is enough. Give one to the kid." Well, I didn't do it. [audience chuckles] I just turned around and kept walking.

 

But I can tell you that really, there's something broke inside me, because that second hot dog didn't taste as good as the first one. I remember very clearly that I walked that street for maybe the next couple of days, up and down at about the same time, just hoping to find the kid again, just making sure that I had another chance to do something that I knew I didn't do. But of course, it didn't happen. I realized that this was one of those random opportunities that life gives you to assert yourself as a decent human being. I clearly missed that opportunity that day, and it has haunted me the rest of my life. Thank you.