Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Yesterday, while I was impressing my coworker with my excellent taste in Midtown lunch locales, the cashier at Wendy’s made a fatal error: she marked me as to go.

“That’s fine,” my coworker said, ordering his to-go as well. “We can just eat in the cafeteria.”

I kept my composure — but inside, my veins had turned to ICE. After all, there is a sharp divide between those who stay and those who go.

In terms of eco-friendliness, to stay or to go doesn’t matter; either way you receive a small rain forest of paper products. The big difference: distribution method of condiments. Those who choose to dine within the warm cockles of Dave Thomas’ orphanage for hungry souls have access to the hand pumps. Those who choose to face the cold: a measly ration of three ketchup packets.

EVER NOTICE HOW KETCHUP IS RED.

When requesting extra ketchup packets in the past, I have literally been DENIED.

Esteemed Wendy’s employee: I’m not trying to make some hobo tomato soup of Heinz and Splenda. I just have very specific ketchup needs. Ketchup needs that some might consider “unnatural” or “grotesquely excessive” or “stressful for the tomato industry,” but that I like to consider “American.”

The terrorists won.

Regardless of my own ketchup needs, in what universe is THREE KETCHUP PACKETS sufficient to cover a medium fry? Look, I took physics … at some point in high school, and by my estimates, working at a rate of 5 fries per ketchup packet, three packets will only clear fifteen french fries — barely a small fry! That’s not even accounting for any additional ketchup your sandwich may require.

But it was too late! The Wendy’s burger was already tucked in the paper to-go bag, my bright yellow drink mocking me from within its sheath of carrying plastic. Worse still, on on my way pick up a straw, the hand-pumps taunted me: infinite ketchup, limited only by the number of small paper baskets you can balance in your trembling hands.

My record: seven.

Dare I pump and stack within my to-go bag? I had tried it in the past. Each attempt ended in casualties and heartbreak. But I knew there had to be a way to engineer a ketchup basket pyramid that would not lose a drop of sweet vinegar-tomato ambrosia. My mind became a clear board in a college movie about young geniuses, crammed with intricate integrations of three dimensional objects (and maybe doing something with vectors, math was a long time ago, okay). There must be a solution! There must!

“Mary?” my coworker said.

My reverie broken, I snapped my head toward him. “What?” I said, panting with savant-exertion.

“Do you want my ketchup packets? I know you’re going to ask for them, anyway.”

I knew then that the solution to tough questions like “how to compensate for condiment stinginess” was not something as useful and elegant as math. All along it had been staring me in the face. It was something more universal, heart-warming, and sentimental. It was … a steady history of mooching ketchup from friends.

But really, six ketchup packets only covers a half a medium fry.

Until next time, dear foodies –

MARY

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