Hold the Mayo

Earlier tonight, starving and ready for some guy time, I journeyed to Alpine Bagel with friendly Will Halicks. Soon thereafter I realized I needed salt and pepper, but my search for seasoning was deterred by the discovery of these:

At first I thought these brightly colored packets were some sort of strange, Alpine-branded organic honey, but oh, was I ever wrong. Once I stopped wondering why a place that sells coffee and bagels felt the need to carry ketchup, I quickly grabbed up all the designs I could find and reveled in my ketchup fetish, which I once won an award for - "Most Disgusting Amount of Ketchup on a Burger," Blepo Ski Trip, Winterplace, West Virgina. Will found it amusing, but I'm sure Will's friend found it not so amusing when she introduced herself to me and all I could do was gush about specially designed ketchup packets. Obviously, I am a sad, sad man, since it is now nearly 1 in the morning and I am neglecting to study and get sleep for tomorrow's 8 AM news editing exam, instead opting to take pictures of the winners of the Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest and write about it on my blog.

According to Heinz, "Teachers will find an easy-to-follow lesson plan designed especially for their class's age group. The kit includes templates for the design contest, instructions on submitting the artwork, fun ketchup facts and nutrition information. Heinz hopes teachers have fun talking with students about Heinz, tomatoes, ketchup and lycopene. That's why Heinz put together the 'fun facts' sheet for each grade grouping - it combines educational information, history on the H.J. Heinz Company and its founder, tomato health information and much, much more." Right. Because teachers can just stop worrying about No Child Left Behind test scores and instead do whatever the fuck they want about tomato products.

Most of the winners hail from New York and Miami, which I'm sure is some thinly veiled comment about the East Coast's condiment market, but I'm not about to Google "East Coast, ketchup factories." (Okay, that's a lie, but all I got was information about Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.) The winning kids received a handful of mediocre prizes, most notably $750 in free Heinz Ketchup for their respective winning schools. Poor kids couldn't even get any free fucking ketchup for themselves.

And such is the evidence for what is quite possibly the lamest contest ever. And that's exactly why I love it.