Ketchup and Watches

Someone recently accused me of being cynical and bitter.

I rejected this characterization.  I am not cynical.  I'm hopeful and optimistic!  I am not bitter.  I'm bubbly and fun!

Then, I ate a damn french fry.

I blame the fucking ketchup.

I'm not a huge fan of ketchup in the first place.  It's basically pickled tomato paste.  I like tomatoes.  Why boil down their essence and add anything?  They are perfect the way they are.

So, there I was, eating a french fry with Heinz ketchup, which if you haven't had a glob lately is inordinately thick, at least when found in large chain restaurants that keep 1 gallon containers of it on their condiment counters.  Thick, for ketchup, is actually a good thing.

I was struck with the memory of a commercial I had seen some years ago--a ketchup commercial.  A Heinz ketchup commercial, if I remember correctly.  Heinz ketchup is so thick it takes awhile to get it out of the glass bottle.  Standing in their kitchen, waiting for their ketchup, a middle aged man props the bottle and grabs his wife.  They slow dance in the kitchen while their ketchup makes infinitesimally slow progress toward the plate.

The message is clear:  What comes next is worth the wait.

It's a picture of love, slow and sustaining, and long-lived.  It's the kind of love you'll wait a lifetime for and which you would gladly sacrifice your own life to protect.

It's fucking ketchup.

Ketchup in a glass container that would never be purchased in our fast-paced world today; a world that requires plastic squeeze bottles and watered down ketchup so we can hurry up and get it done.

Sad.

Because I was thinking about the slow nature of thick ketchup, and the manipulations of advertisers, this brought to mind another commercial.  One I had seen as a young child.

A man and a woman are walking down cross streets in a busy city.  There is some narration, or perhaps captions.  I can't recall for sure.  I just know how it played out.

These two are destined to be together.  They are each others' perfect match.

In just a few short seconds, they will collide with one another on that street corner, gaze into each others' eyes, and find the kind of love you see in ketchup commercials 10 years later.

But, wait!  They pass by one another by a hair!  No collision!  No true love!

Should have bought a Timex.

Since that day, whenever I think of watches, I think of Timex watches.

I'm pathetic.  I know.

But not so full of hope.  Not so full of optimism here.

Bitter.  Cynical (definition 2) in this:  that kind of love just does not exist anymore.  If it ever did.  And it will surely never exist for me.

Fucking ketchup commercial.  Ruined my damn fries.