This story begins at about one thirty on a Monday night. I am in need of juice. The car sits in its blue wonder; I have a desire to walk. The destination? Kroger.
I get dressed and head out into the night. ‘Tis a good night. Not to cool, clear skies. Traffic non-existent, much like many other times in Crawfordsville. On the way, my mind wanders. I think to myself, “Geoff,” as this is what I refer to myself as in my thoughts, “what you really need is a never-ending bottle of ketchup.” “Ketchup?” I question myself. “What would you do with a never-ending bottle of ketchup?”
“What wouldn’t I do with a never-ending bottle of ketchup? Why, I could glaze meatloaf for eternity! I could put an end to world hunger! I could entertain small children, and inspire them to do great things with their lives!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I stop myself. “The first two make since, as it is a food item, but entertain small children? How do you propose to do that?”
“You obviously have no idea how easily entertained small children are. They watch Teletubbies.”
“Point taken. Still, if you are wishing for anything, why not wish for something a little more, I don’t know, conventional? Like an endless bag of money?”
“No! That is a horrible idea! That would throw off the world economy! Inflation would skyrocket to the point where currency would have no value, and wars would start! I would trigger Armageddon with this evil endless bag of money! No, I reject your bag and stick with my bottle.”
“Fine. What of eternal life?”
“There’s an idea, except I would outlive all of my acquaintances and eventually be looked upon as a dirty old man when I cannot resist my urges to procreate. Who wants to go through an eternity of that?”
I thought and thought for another alternative so that I could stump myself. A never-ending bottle of ketchup. It seemed so. . .innocent. So. . .boring. Finally, I had it.
“Eternal youth!”
“Ketchup will do wonders for the skin.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, I now realize maybe I should have checked his sources instead of blindly accepting his points. Still, at the time, I went with it. Another question crept into my mind. “What brand would this ketchup be?”
“That is a good question. I suppose it would have to be a special blend, as none of the other ketchups seem to have mastered the art of self-continuation.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Finally, I reached the glowing Kroger sign. I entered the store, through the exit door, as the sign mandated that this must be done from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Horrible things would result if this sign was not followed, not the least of which involved goats and calamari. Anyway, this idea of the never-ending bottle of ketchup was taking root in my mind. I had to find it; it was my personal El Dorado. I went to the aisle of ketchup. Surely, amongst these countless bottles (or, at least, I didn’t count them) the fabled one must reside. I reached for the first bottle and emptied it onto the floor. This obviously was not the bottle. I repeated this process for a good while until one of the stock boys saw my El Dorado-searching. He also noticed the sea of ketchup I had made in the process. “What do you think you’re doing?” he inquired, in a threatening tone. I panicked. I used the only excuse I could think of.
“It stopped working.”
With this, I was promptly forced to pay $234.45 for the ketchup, thrown out of the store, and banned for life.
The moral of the story? Don’t listen to yourself. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.
Okay, so the part about emptying ketchup bottles in the middle of Kroger didn’t really happen, but the majority of the rest of it actually did. This is a piece I wrote for the April Fool’s edition of my school newspaper. I just thought there would be many here who would enjoy it as well.
