About twenty years ago, I went to an old soda shop style restaurant in downtown Burlington named Zack's.  Their main fare was hot dogs and Cokes in ten ounce glass bottles.  And everything was always served with a smile and a thanks.

Zack's hot dogs has been a staple of North Carolina's piedmont since 1928, when they first served their signature hot dogs to a very happy customer.  Fifty-five years later, I discovered them, and even today, they are still serving traditional American food to patrons of all ages.  Any time a restaurant is open for 75 years, owned by the same family the entire time, they are doing something right.

I'll never forget the first time I ordered from them.  I didn't want just a plain hot dog, I wanted something special.  Something unique.  So I chose the cheesedog.

Visions of a hot dog covered in melted cheese danced in my head, lighting up my imagination.  What kind of cheese would it be?  Cheddar?  American?  Something exotic like pepperjack?  Maybe that melty cheese that seeps into the hot dog bun like it thought it was chili.  Or maybe it was a hot dog stuffed with cheese!

Growing up, I had what I affectionately called "Fat Boy Asthma."  Whenever I would play sports, I had trouble breathing.  I never experienced an attack for no reason like most asthma sufferers, it only happened when I exerted myself.  In fact, that's what the doctor's called it, over-exertion asthma .

I still called it Fat Boy Asthma.

I was chubby during those years before puberty.  Of course, now, after puberty we all call it something different.  Big-boned.  Because our bones have grown, right?  Actually, my bones aren't bigger than other people's, just the cushioning on them is.

The descriptor "chubby" was killed sometime during the Political Correctness Movement of the 80s and 90s.  The blander, more vanilla terms of "overweight" and "weight-challenged" took its place.  "Obese" even came into play but that was reserved for your overly chubby people.  We just called them "fat" back then.

I bought some music online the other day from an outfit named "CD Baby ."  They specialize in selling independent music of all genres and all of it is DRM-free.  It is so much better than buying music at one of those mega-sites because these artists are true artists.  They aren't that Top 40 crap that the music industry tries to force down our throats.  This is real music.

Indie groups are basically groups that haven't been signed to one of the four major record labels (Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, and Warner Music).  These labels account for 70% of music sales worldwide and 85% of music sales in the US.  And most of the money from their sales go to their employees and marketing machine.  The actual music group only receives between 7% and 13% of the income their product generated.

The lungs provide our bodies with life-giving oxygen. The heart pumps our blood, the kidneys filter our system, the eyes provide visual representations of the world around us. We've even discovered that the appendix has a purpose, to store excess bacteria. But what are the fingernails for?

Your first thought is that they do serve a purpose, to protect the ends of our fingers. But you're wrong. Remember the last time you smacked your finger or thumb with a hammer? Do you honestly think it could have hurt any worse than it did? So ask yourself, did you fingernail really provide any true protection?

I have some other theories. I believe God did provide us with fingernails for a reason. In fact, I think there are many reasons.