The Lesser Ketchup Disaster of 89

The Lesser Ketchup Disaster of 89

For those who have read my story: The Great Ketchup Disaster of 89, an explanation regarding my college roommate Dave is not necessary. For those who are unfamiliar with the tail, let me just say that Dave had a gift for performing amazing feats that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Not that he had an actual act or anything. Things just happened to and around Dave that do not happen to other people.  The lesser ketchup disaster of 89 is a perfect example.

The school cafeteria had a ketchup dispenser which was mounted on the wall. The dispenser was basically a plastic box that held about a three gallon bag of ketchup with a press-to-dispense valve on the bottom. When the box was closed, the bag was held securely inside, and the valve was essentially clamped into the port through which it protruded. To get some ketchup, all you had to do was to depress a small projection on the valve while holding a plate, or other container under it. A simple and nearly foolproof device that had worked to perfection for as long as it was in place. Enter Dave:

 Dave had gotten his dinner; I believe it was a hamburger, and proceeded to the dispenser for some ketchup. He held the burger under the dispenser and depressed the valve. This was nothing that had not been done before, multiple times, by virtually every student and staff member at the school, then, or since the building was erected, and done neatly and safely, as you would usually expect. But with Dave the only constant was the occurrence of the unusual and unexpected. As soon as he pressed on the valve, I heard Dave shout, “ooh”! He then followed that exclamation with something like, “Oh…whoa…whah…whohohohohowah”. I looked over and could see that the valve, the very… no, strike that, extremely secure valve had come right off the dispenser, had, in fact, torn right off the bag, and now, to Dave’s utter dismay, was topping his burger while the ketchup dispenser was doing what it was designed to do, dispensing Ketchup, in spades.

 There was a pile of ketchup on the edge of Dave’s tray that had built to a height that shouldn’t be possible when you consider the viscosity of your typical ketchup. From there, it was cascading down the pile and into a shallow pool on the base of the tray, looking very much like an ornamental garden waterfall, done in red. It then continued on, pouring over the edge of the tray and onto the cafeteria floor, where, once more, there was a blob of ketchup that belied a capacity which the dispenser could not possibly contain.

 Dave made one valiant attempt at redemption by grabbing a glass off of the tray of a passing student and holding it under the escaping condiment, but it was way too little, and way, way too late. The crowd of people in the cafeteria was all watching in stunned silence, like a group of Buddhist monks watching the Dali Llama levitate. All that is, except the cafeteria manager; he was holding a dustpan out toward Dave and making scooping motions with it. 

 I ‘m not saying that this incident was measurably more, or less spectacular than any other on the growing list of incidents for which Dave was gaining an infamous reputation, but it was a turning point. I noticed that, after this day, those who knew Dave well, avoided travelling with him in cars, trains, and planes, and gave him lots of personal space during tornado and thunderstorm alerts. And whenever Dave came into a room and attempted to do anything involving operating even the simplest device, from buying a pop from the vending machine to sharpening a pencil, people would quietly gather and begin to watch. Like a crowd of tourists at Yellowstone, waiting for Old Faithful.