rSlash - r/Bestof My Boyfriend Has a Secret Hot Dog Club

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:07 Hot dog 5:10 HOA 10:59 Ring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Mike Berenholz. On my new show, Funny You Ask, Trivia starts the conversation, and then things immediately go off the rails. I ask a question. My guests think they know the answer. Sometimes they do. More often, they do not. And then the conversation takes a turn. One trivia question turns into stories about career highs, painful bombs, and behind-the-scenes moments that probably should have remained private.

You'll hear confidence, misplaced confidence, bold guesses, wrong answers, quick laughs, and the slow realization that maybe this was a bad idea to say out loud. If you like smart comedy, sharp conversations, and trivia that exists purely to melt people's brains, this is Funny You Ask with me, Ike Barronholtz. Follow Funny You Ask with Ike Barronholz on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to R-slash Best of Redator updates, where OP discovers that her boyfriend has secret hot dog meetings. Our next Reddit post is from R-slash Relationships. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost three years.

We have what I would describe as a pretty solid relationship. We have enough similar interests to enjoy activities together, but enough divergent ones that we also have full, complete lives outside of the relationship. We already spend almost every night together and plan to move in together when his lease is up in the fall. We work about three miles from each other, and on some days, carpool depending on schedules. Typically, during the work week,

I get up and make breakfast and pack our lunches. This has been ongoing since probably six months in. Usually for breakfast, I don't do anything crazy. Oatmeal, cereal, scrambled eggs and toast. Normal breakfast stuff. For lunch, I pack sandwiches, chips or pretzels, some sort of fruit, and a couple of days a week, a sweet treat. I always make his portions larger than mine, and he's never complained before about any of it. Today we went to lunch and stopped at a nearby park.

I was sitting across the picnic table from him when I noticed some yellow on his shirt and made a comment, You have yellow on you. He looked over and scratched it away. There was a lot of it and I mindlessly said, Did you take a mustard bath before lunch? And he just turned bright red. After some questions as to why he was embarrassed, the truth came out. I don't make him large enough meals.

And almost every day for the past two or so years, he takes his 15-minute morning break and walks to a nearby convenience store where he purchases what can only be described as a second breakfast hot dog. I recognize this sounds ridiculous, but I'm so hurt and upset that he's been starving all this time and never wanted to say anything. Of course, now I'm embarrassed because he thinks it's the funniest thing to ever happen, but I'm really, really bothered that instead of sharing his discomfort with me like a normal person, he just had a mid-morning hot dog for months on end. This conversation eventually ended up with us both mad.

Me, for what I feel is deception. him for what he feels is me blowing this all out of proportion. Do I just ignore it, or is this indicative of bigger problems? The next day, OP posted an update. I guess nothing really matters now because things have taken a turn for the worse. Like I said, I was feeling like a turd by the end of the day, so I stopped by the grocery store on my way home and bought him three cans of Vienna sausages, which I presented with a verbal apology to him before dinner. He laughed and we moved on. During dinner, we were talking about everything, and I mentioned the original post I'd made, and he asked to see it. So he read it while I was cleaning up my kitchen. And when I got done and went into the living room, he was sitting there with tears in his eyes.

I asked him what was wrong, and he took a deep breath and told me that he felt bad so many people had told me that I was off the deep end. I was really confused by this point, so ask why he felt that way. Turns out, the reason I didn't know about his daily hot dog is because he's been meeting an ex there to take their morning break together. This girl is his college sweetheart who stayed in the city after school. They broke up years before we even met, so I only know of her abstractly. He's always spoken fondly of her, and according to him, they just grew apart. However, it seems that she has a job working nearby the convenience store that he frequents, And once they realized via Facebook they were working in close proximity, they decided to meet up at the store.

So they go there four or five days a week, get their snacks, and chat. He says it's just been talking. She's got a boyfriend. He says they don't really talk about their actual lives. They just shoot the breeze. I asked him why he didn't tell me about this before now. And he said he didn't think that it was a big deal, but that he also didn't want me to ask him about it or be suspicious. I don't know. I feel like having secret ex-girlfriend meetings that happen to include hot dogs is a lot different from eating secret hot dogs. So I guess the update is that I'm still upset, although I feel like now things are maybe more justified. I tried not to overreact,

told him this was all pretty effing weird that he's hung out with an ex, briefly as it may be, daily for nearly two years without mentioning it. He said he didn't have any intention of stopping his morning chats with the ex, so I needed to learn to deal with it. I don't know. I honestly just feel sad and gross right now. Oh, make no mistake, O.P., the ex-girlfriend is definitely devouring that hot dog, no doubt about it. It's a shame because O.P. genuinely seems like a really sweet girlfriend. The reason why she's upset is because the boyfriend didn't give her an opportunity for her to take care of him. Like she wanted to make him more food, and she's making him food even though they don't live together. She's making a meal and then bringing it to him, which is incredibly sweet.

And this guy responds with secret hide the hot dog parties, which I'm sure is not just shooting the breeze. He's definitely shooting something, shooting ropes more like. Our next Reddit post is from R slash legal advice. My father owns a house in an area with a community well. Back in the 90s, when he bought the land and had the house built, the neighborhood was all supposed to be developed. My father knew someone involved in the plans and bought a plot as soon as the opportunity came up. Meanwhile, the well was put in by a well service, and the way the contract worked, the well service owns the well and lines. However, there was some drama with the development company, and the rest of the development didn't end up happening at that time. They eventually sold it all to a different development company, and that new company developed the block as an HOA neighborhood.

They asked my dad to join, he said no, it was never really an issue again, until recently. After the area was developed, the well company has always managed the well and builds people directly. They pay a very small amount that covers the cost of maintaining the well as well. Apparently, the well servicer recently wanted to get out of the well business, but not a lot of well services want to own the well. They want to service them on contracts, but don't want to be the actual owners these days. So they sold the well back to the HOA, who now owns it and hired a new company to do the maintenance. Now, here's a failure on our parts.

My dad received notice in the mail about this from the HOA. However, they've sent him mail in the past that was not relevant to him, so he thought the recent mailings were pointless and ignored it. Apparently, there were three community meetings held about this that he did not attend. They've left him voicemails, but he admits that he listened to the first two seconds, thought that it was political spam, and ignored it. Now they've finally gotten in touch with him, and they said that since the well is owned by the HOA,

they're treating it as an HOA benefit, and they can't give those benefits to non-members. They told him they understand that he doesn't want to be held to HOA Covenant just to keep getting the same water he always has. But since the HOA is taking on the burden of the well, they need to be fair to members and not have someone who isn't paying for HOA benefits receiving them. It sounded exactly as slimy as it reads. They're offering him a special allowance to join the HOA, but not to be held to its covenant such as house colors and fences and all those other things, but so that he can use the well. I don't know if they're being slimy and pulling a fast one without a legal basis, or if my father should be legitimately concerned. Should he get a lawyer?

Then one month later, OP posted an update. The HOA told my dad that he has to pay $800 a month to use the well service, plus the actual water bill on top of it. He did end up getting a lawyer to see him ASAP. The lawyer told him the first thing he needed to do was to get records of ownership for the well, to try to get his hands on the details of the sale. Then my dad got a surprise, a water bill from the original well servicer right on time for their three times a year billing. Obviously that's odd, considering he's been told that they don't own the well anymore, and he called up the well company. It turns out my dad was just lied to. The well servicer was never looking to get out of the well business permanently, but rather

was looking to contract out the day-to-day testing services of the well to another company, because many of the wells they service now require more testing. So when the HOA told my dad that they now owned the well, they were just plain lying. When the HOA said they had a new company doing the servicing, they were half truthful. A new company was doing the testing, but the HOA had nothing to do with it.

The contract is between the original well servicer and the individual guy they're contracting out to. The original well company also told my dad that the HOA reached out to them, the well company, and said that they were going to take over billing, you know, to streamline things for residents, claiming it would make their residents' lives easier if they only had to keep track of one bill and not multiple. However, the HOA actually has no authority to just declare this, and the well servicer just outright told them, no. The well servicer will continue to bill individual

properties. The timing of this coincides with when the HOA started contacting my dad, so they were just trying to pull a fast one on everyone. So, going back around to the lawyer, my dad got an appointment with the lawyer to tell him all this, and the lawyer had his own news that matched up entirely. The reason he couldn't find records of the sale was because he doesn't believe a legitimate sale has happened. He thinks my dad was just getting scammed. So all in all, my dad will continue to use the well as he always has. He's pretty angry that he had to spend a bunch of money to find out what he already knew, that the HOA is made up of dicks. But we're definitely breathing a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, my father's lawyer has suggested that there may be room for legal action against the HOA for what was basically fraudulent claims. My father doesn't want to spend the money pursuing it at this time, but the well servicer did ask for copies of everything he received from the HOA because they want to review it with their lawyer. You know, I know that it's like satisfying and fun to seek revenge, especially online, like, oh yeah, he got revenge and made them all suffer. But I do genuinely think the people who pursue revenge against these scummy companies are doing

everyone else a favor. Because, I mean, you could say, oh, let's live and let live, no harm done. O.P.'s dad should just move on with his life. But if the HOA is trying to scam O.P.'s dad, who else are they trying to scam? My guess, every single unwitting resident of that toxic HOA. So by suing that company, yeah, he'd be getting revenge, but he'd also be shedding light on their scummy practices, which could help out who knows who else in the community. So, you know, I just think people who take the high road, it seems very noble and nice,

but when you let the bad guy get away, they just keep doing bad things. Our next Reddit post is from R slash marriage. A few weeks ago, my husband lost his wedding ring in the Mediterranean while we were on holiday. We searched everywhere for it, but eventually had to accept that it was gone. Ever since, he's been really quiet about it, but I can tell that it hit him hard. He keeps absentmindedly touching the spot where the ring used to be, and every so often he'll say something like, I can't believe it's gone. Up until now, I didn't realize he was that attached to it. So secretly, after we got home, I tracked down a local metal detector guy from the area and asked if there was any chance he could try looking for it.

I told him I'll pay whatever he wanted. This man spent two days searching the sea for the ring, and somehow, unbelievably, he found it. My husband has absolutely no idea that we have it back, and I'm trying to think of the most meaningful, emotional, unforgettable way to give it back to him. We've been together for nine years, married for three, and I already know this is going to make him cry. Then, 11 days later, O.P. posted an update. The ring arrived in the post yesterday evening, and I was ridiculously excited. My husband had absolutely no clue what was in the package. Since it had a Spanish postage stamp on it, he just assumed that I had bought something on Vinted,

and thought nothing more of it. We got takeaway for dinner. We were just about to tuck into our Thai food on the sofa. My husband was in a bit of a grumpy mood, nothing serious, just one of those days. I asked if he would like to pour us some cola while he picked something to watch on Netflix. I went into the kitchen, got our drinks,

came back, sat down beside him, and, as casually as I could manage, held up the ring and said, So, do you want to put your wedding ring on? His face immediately looked like he was about to say, please stop bringing up the ring. He was still browsing on Netflix, but then he looked over and saw it. Instant silence.

His jaw dropped slightly, and he wrinkled his forehead. He just stared at it for what felt like forever. I asked if he was okay. He took the ring, checked the engraving, inspected every little detail. And once he realized it was actually his ring, he pulled me into such a tight hug that we both fell backwards onto the sofa. My husband usually doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but he couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the evening. He kept looking at the ring and turning it over in his hands. Later, he told me that he had finally made peace with losing it.

He'd convinced himself that it was gone forever and was probably pirate treasure by now. He said seeing it again was like seeing a ghost, and he was genuinely in shock. I then asked him if he was happy and whether he was still willing to remain married to me. He laughed and said, if you're willing to fight the seas just to make me happy, then of course I would. That absolutely melted me. Even though he has his crazy moments, as husbands generally do, he's genuinely the kindest, most understanding man I've ever known,

and he deserves the world. Thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions and shared in this little adventure, and a massive thank you to the incredible metal detector man who somehow managed to find a wedding ring in the Mediterranean Sea when all hope seemed lost. My husband has his ring back, and we couldn't be happier. I read so many disgusting, repulsive stories about the scum of humanity on these posts. It's really nice to occasionally have just a sweet, heartwarming, oh, people can actually be decent

story. Oh, people can actually love each other and treat each other with kindness and respect story. So congrats, O.P. I'm glad you found the ring, and more importantly, I'm glad you to have an awesome relationship. That was our slash best of Reddeter updates, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.