I put ketchup on eggs. It’s genetic. Anyway, my wife and I were in a restaurant in Tennessee, eating eggs with ketchup, when some kids in the booth behind us gasped, standing on their seats, pointing, and yelled to their parents – and half the restaurant – that a couple of Yankee freaks were putting KETCHUP on their eggs.
Until that point, I did not know I was different. Kids can be so cruel.
I hate stereotyping. But just as I had arrived at the totally unfair conclusion that the ladies in the booth across from me at lunch might have evening jobs that involve poles and bad 80s hair band music, they dumped a paper bag of crinkled dollar bills on the table and started counting them. Then, they began to discuss – loudly and in colorful terms – their pet peeves about their customers, erasing all doubt that I had misunderstood and that they, perhaps, simply worked for a vending company with a very lax dress code.
Fill the ketchup. FILL the KETCHUP! I got so irritated at lunch one day that I collected mostly-empty bottles from six tables, arranged them neatly in a circle on the table next to me, then told the confused waitress when she returned, nonchalantly, “You’re a little low on ketchup.” It was a jerky thing to do, but I’d do it again. I would.
I was in the kind of place that might employ the abovementioned dollar-bill ladies exactly one time in my life (it was a long, long time ago and I was obligated – I was in the wedding party). I spent half the night laying low and the other half chatting with a half-dressed but very sincere waitress about her Comp II class. [I was barely out of college myself, so it wasn’t as creepy as it sounds.]
Anyway, the perky scholar said, as if embarrassed, that she was not normally a waitress. No, she was a dancer, but she had pulled a hamstring and was on “light duty” that night. It was – in that place, at that time – the single funniest thing I had ever heard, as evidenced by the $12 Bud Light coming out of my nose.
Waitress: “Would you like ketchup for your fries, honey.”
My daughter (about age 3): “Duh!”
Where does she get it?
The older I get, the more insistent I become about two things: If you don’t put the paper on the porch, I’ll read it online and you can just skip my house and credit my account. Likewise, if the salad doesn’t arrive before the main course, then don’t bring it at all. Is that so unreasonable?
And, when the waitress forgets the ketchup with my omelet, and I have to ask for it a second time, throwing off her routine, I will bet you $100 she doesn’t return until my eggs are cold. Guaranteed.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that the kinds of places where the waitresses anticipate that you might want ketchup with your eggs are the same places you are most likely to find boisterous women counting dollar bills at the next table. Not to stereotype.