Daily Rant  Big Rants

Ketchup Nazis - the Bane of a Good Fast Food Experience Picture this scene with me. You go through the drive through of your favorite fast food restaurant. You order a #4 greasebomb with fries, hold the lard. The person on the other end of the cable asks you if you want ketchup or salt with your order, and you say yes. You pull around, pay the person in window #1 and proceed to window #2 for your food. The person at window #2 hands you a frosty beverage and a bag of fat-filled delight and you head off. Only to find you've been screwed by... The Ketchup Nazi. The Ketchup Nazi is the person who heard your request for ketchup, but then blatantly ignores the laws of physics and ketchup consumption (which expressed mathematically is the speed of Heinz ketchup coming out of the bottle on a 3rd story window divided by the number of fries in a super size (king size, biggie size, whatever) multiplied by pi, because no equation is cool unless it has pi in it) and gives you 3 ketchup packets for your four and half pounds of fries. Uh oh, side rant incoming. Whoever the *&^( designed single serving ketchup packets needs to burn in hell right beside the sadomasochistic bastard who created the packaging for CDs and DVDs. I have a great idea! Lets take half a thimble full of ketchup, shove it into a 1 ounce package made of foil, seal it nice and tight and then make sure the only easy way to open it is to apply pressure and tear off a corner. This of course works wonders when the opener has hands larger than a carbon molecule and must compress half the package to get a grip on it, with the subsequent release of pressure creating what we like to call the "Red Geyser". Ok side rant over So I get back to work to eat my lunch (they only give us 15 minutes before the radio-controlled shock collars kick in you know) pop open the bag, pull out my food and look for the ketchup I asked for. My brain refuses to acknowledge the fact that the 3 packets staring back at me from the bottom of the bag are all I got and begins to look for secret compartments. After giving up the search for the lost pouch of ketchup, my brain gives in and begins to calculate how much ketchup I can place on each fry but still apply a small amount to every fry. Upon reaching the answer "about a mosquito's testicle worth" I am forced to ask the people around me if they have any ketchup, the answer to which is always "no" or "one packet, but its like 6 months old". Knowing this in advance, I came upon a clever plan when next I visited the local purveyor of obesity. When asked if I want ketchup, I respond "lots!", thinking that any normal human being would understand that I need more than 3 packets worth to qualify under the description "lots". Snickering at my cleverness, I head back to my desk to enjoy my tomato-paste covered lard sticks when to my horror I realized what happened. They gave me 4 packets. "DAMN YOU KETCHUP NAZIS!!!!" I scream into the air, causing several co-workers to turn up their headphones (this happens a lot) and others to begin laughing hysterically, as my battle against the Nazis has become something of a cubical legend by now. Alone with my FOUR packets, I begin to wonder exactly how the person behind the counter, their drive-through headphones hermetically sealed to their ears, could have done this to me. And then it came to me, a revelation of 10Ghz proportions. Here's the breakdown. First, you need to find out who is actually filling the bag. At larger or busier places, this is hard to do, but at smaller or less busy restaurants, its normally the same person taking your order. Note the sex of the person filling the bag. If the sex of the person matches yours, then you are in luck, and you will most likely be blessed with a large handful of ketchup. However, if the sexes don't match, you are screwed and should immediately invest in your own bottle of ketchup, cause you ain't gonna get any from this person. Why you ask? Well, I have a theory. If you are male (as I am) and the person filling the bag is male, 99% guaranteed he has had the same thing happen to him so he knows what you mean when you say "lots". I have only had this fail me once ever, and I think its because he was really young and as such had little experience ordering his own food. However, for some reason, women just don't comprehend what I am saying when I ask for lots of ketchup. Maybe its that whole Mars/Venus thing or maybe women just never have a problem with it, but for some reason every female that fills the bag always Nazis me on the ketchup. Curious about this whole sex/ketchup thing (is that a porn site?) I asked my wife if she had this happen to her at all. Amazingly, she said that the same happens to her, only in reverse, the women (must be that communal woman brain thing) give her all the ketchup she needs and guys always hold back. If I ever end up managing a fast food restaurant I will be sure to inform my employees on proper condiment syntax. Maybe I could hire a personal McD liaison so whenever I go to McBurger I would know what language to use so the people behind the headgear will know what I am saying. I suppose I could be more explicit and respond with "at least 10 packets worth please" but that violates Voltare's 14th law of fast food, which is that you can never be specific on condiments, lest ye be smited with a botched order. (kinda like a Catholic ordering a fish filet during lent and getting a triple bacon burger with extra beef and a side of beef strips). I actually said "a handful please" once, but then somehow got a chicken caeser bread bowl salad instead of my quarter pounder. Needless to say, I stopped trying long ago. Best plan I've come up with yet is to walk in once and abscond with a bagful of packets so next time you get the tomato shaft, you have a backup plan.