Ketchup Kills Youth

Ello!

If you would have asked me a couple of years ago what three things I most would not want in life the answer would have a receding hairline, a love of KFC and a bottle of Ketchup.

Now the KFC thing was the first to go, I'm not saying its like that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise goes jogging to the bad part of town in order to buy space drugs or what ever he was getting (most likely just normal drugs but I'm hoping they were space drugs) but it is not close off.

The two times it really hits home is right after any kind of gym visit or after a really bad nights drinking. Logic means I can tame the gym thing but in my weakened state of being hungover I can also almost hear the Zinger burger call to me 'Ohhh Andy, you know you want me, I'll follow you on twitter and watch Doctor Who with you, which is all you ever wanted in a woman' and being the weak man I am it wins. Granted I'm attempting to go cold Turkey which means I'm expecting a dead baby to walk up my wall clinging to a Zinger Box at any moment, but I'm shying away from the point I wanted to make, and that comes with the simple purchase of a bottle of Ketchup.

Ladies and gents lets paint a picture.

A tired and sweaty young Mr. Gaffney comes back to his flat after a hard day of doing an easy job which took about an hour and sipping a pint while reading Total Film while dreaming of Alexa Chung running towards him in a corn field only to come back to his flat and find the fridge as empty as a member of the Loose Women's note book on 'How not to be Annoying', so a trip to the shop was needed.

When I arrived I didn’t buy my normal Pizza, cheap water and orange juice I normally go for, I felt the need to do a bit more, little did I know that would be start of this whole new feeling. I picked myself up some bread and butter with said orange juice , which took care of the next breakfast but I had came here for Dinner so picked myself up some fish and a few oven chips , not exactly a Kitchen Nightmares make over I know but there is a point to all this.

I had everything, I was making my way to the counter but then I thought 'I normally eat spicy wedges and not chips, I better get something to jazz them up' now people who know me will know I like plain food, hella plain, so plain I would ask for plain food paste if I were an Astronaut, but today was different, I was going to buy myself some Ketchup. I made my way to the little bit in the corner of the shop and saw a massive ugly red plastic container , now seeing as I don't run a cafe in Eastenders, I didn’t get that, oh but then I seen it, a Ketchup bottle so perfect I felt like David Bowman.

It was a perfectly sized bottle of Heinz, and glass too, it was perfect.

Then it hit me, I felt grown up, this isn't some microwaveable chicken curry, this is something that real people with real problems buy, it was glass and it was Ketchup, the back bone of any kitchen sink drama.

I could already see myself down the mines, going to football games on a Saturday and dealing with lone sharks. I felt great, that the tiny childish me has gone away for a little while.

Now lets get one thing clear, I still am unrealistically chasing a career by doing an non paying job and sticking to it and have no plans to enter into too much of the real world, but for some reason this fancy glass bottle of Ketchup will always be a little image to me of 'You know what, you've made your bed now time to be a grown up in it'.

As for the receding hairline, that’s also on the way to stay...screw this getting older stuff.