H.J. Heinz, the makers of America’s most beloved ketchup, Heinz Tomato Ketchup (not Catsup), has officially announced that they will be selling the “glass bottle” ketchup in select stores this summer. They said that they “want to bring some nostalgia to the summer barbecue season.”
I know personally that I cannot wait to get ahold of some of these bottles. To sit around on the back porch with some lemonade and reminisce about summers of old, when waiting patiently for ketchup to slowly plop out of the bottle was just part of life, and boy did we love waiting. I believe it will be a welcome contrast to those quick and easy no drip no mess bottles of the present where ketchup is just instantly available while your food is still hot. Man, what sort of fast food society have we become? Are we in such a hurry that we can’t wait 6-8 minutes for ketchup? Apparently we want our ketchup and we WANT IT NOW! Don’t you remember the fun we used to have shaking the bottle? Hitting the bottom of it with the palms of our hands? Shoving a butter knife in the bottle to lovingly help it out? God those days were amazing.
So, I needed to know if I was the only one who had this feeling about the good ‘ol days of ketchup, so I decided to ask a paint huffer I see everyday downtown while I wait for the train. Here’s what he had to say:
Me: Have you heard about Heinz Tomato Ketchup being sold in the old school glass bottles again?
Huffer: Hey man weren’t you here yesterday or something?
Me: Yes, I’m here most weekdays, and so are you.
Huffer: I am? Wait! What is this? I didn’t do shit man!! Are you trying to steal my magical golden paper bag?
Me: No, no. I just want to know what you think about the ketchup being sold in bottles again.
Huffer: Man, listen to me and listen closely. (Whispers) I know what they do to ketchup, I was there man! I used to work in a factory where they had monkeys, TONS of monkeys … and they’d just run around the joint and eat tomatoes all day, it was soooooooooo weird man, they would just eat them all crazy like, like fuckin’ zombies, and tomato guts were just everywhere, dripping down their chins, all in their fur, and they’d jump up and down and scream this horrible horrible scream, just like mommy used to do when she and her weekly manfriend would come home from the bar and they’d play “naked couch” and mommy would turn into a horse, but the details of that aren’t clear since I was only 5, but yeah man … those goddamn monkeys, and those fucking tomatoes and then after they ate so much, to the point of almost bursting, they’d all get on this cartoon-like conveyer belt and … IT’S MONKEY SHIT!! THAT GODDAMN KETCHUP IS MONKEY SHIT BITCH!! … Whoa man … sorry, I need to look inside my magic golden paperbag for a second.
Me: You know what? You better let me have a look inside that bag too, because that’s the kind of ketchup story I want to tell my grandkids.