Contemplating Fancy Ketchup

My tire was flat again. The man at the tire store said that it would take no more than about a half an hour to replace my tire. I knew better though. I had heard similar promises before, so I wasn't buying it this time. I knew that it would be at least an hour, most likely even longer. I decided to head over to the McDonald's next door and grab some lunch.

I settled on the Big Mac meal with fries and a bottled water. Bottled water is very healthy, you know. I also grabbed some packets of ketchup and some napkins. I love ketchup on my fries. In fact, I think I love the ketchup more than I love the fries. I should probably just skip the fries next time and eat the ketchup straight out of the packets.

Anyway, as I was squeezing out that red, delicious goodness, I glanced down at the ketchup packets. They were labeled "Fancy Ketchup." I wondered to myself just what was so fancy about this particular ketchup? I read the list of ingredients. Nothing too fancy there. Tomatoes, salt, vinegar, etc. All pretty standard stuff.

I squirted some ketchup onto my fries, and I got down real close to get a better look at the "fancy" ketchup. To my untrained eyes though, it looked no different than all of the other un-fancy ketchup's that I had eaten in the past. I tasted the ketchup. It was good. Not great. Not fantastic. Certainly not fancy. Just good. So, I still had no idea just what was so fancy about this ketchup.

While I was contemplating just what was so fancy about this ketchup, I started eavesdropping on the conversation playing out in the booth next to me. After all, they may well have been discussing the secret of what makes McDonald's ketchup so fancy and I certainly wouldn't want to miss out on that conversation. Would I?

There was a lady there with a girl who I will assume was her daughter. The daughter had a child seated in a stroller next to her. Even though the daughter was probably no older than fifteen, I had to assume that the baby was the daughter's child.

So, the mother was saying things to the daughter like, "I just can't do it any more. I'm leaving him." She went on to say things like, "I'm tired of him telling me what to do. I don't even let my boss talk to me like that or tell me what to do like that. I just can't deal with it any more. I'm leaving right away, and I'm moving to Florida."

The daughter was crying. Not wailing or bawling or anything like that. Just a tear or two streaming down her cheek. Falling off of her face and dropping down into her fancy ketchup covered french fries.

Suddenly, my own dilemma didn't seem all that important to me any more. And, at least for that moment, all of my own "problems" just didn't seem all that bad to me.

I finished my meal, guzzled down my bottled water and left.