The Ketchup Incident

Abraham Lincoln, Russian dressing and me.

Uh oh.

Yeah, so, two things: One is that over 35 years in radio and TV, there have been countless thousands of mic checks. Others say “1-2-3. Testing. 1-2-3.” I’ve always spoken the Gettysburg Address. Don’t know why, but that’s how I do. Usually the audio is just fine, so I needn’t go past, “Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Some may deem the habit gratuitous presidential-oratory reiteration, but, as a bonus, if anyone ever were to ask me to recite the Gettysburg Address, I’m ready to rumble. Not that anyone ever has. It’s like the quadratic formula: it was a high school struggle to finally get a grasp of it, but since the age of 17, it hasn’t really come up.

Nevertheless, when it comes to Addressing, I’ve been decades at the ready — comforted to know that despite my inevitable path toward compos mentis emeritus, my mind remains supple, my memory intact.

It’s a kind of touchstone. In a senior moment — let’s say blanking on why I walked upstairs, or the name of Claude Rains’s character in Casablanca, or turning off the kitchen faucet — I’ll knock out the Gettysburg Address aloud (for nobody but myself) and set my mind at ease.

So that’s the second thing. I am now a bit on the geriatric side, and I’m lately requiring more and more Gettysburging. Look, everyone occasionally finds themselves unable to retrieve a word, or a name. Or the date. Or the day of the week. Or the last four numbers of their Social. Or the title of the Netflix series with three seasons and 24 episodes they just binged over the weekend. Or was it Amazon Prime?

Happily I can still locate my house after walking the dog. It’s the one with the red door. Nonetheless, I might possibly be drifting toward that awful moment when the kids take my car keys away. And it will happen someday because they are great kids. The blonde one, the Michigan one and the first one. All of them.

On the subject of that dog, there is a universe of those who speak to their pets in sentences. I am one of them, sometimes concerning the events of the moment (“Do you believe what that moron Hegseth just said?”) but mainly with stock endearments such as “Daddy Loves Henry.” I’ve spoken that declaration countless thousands of times over 13 years, one-sided conversation though it usually is.

Well, this was today:

“Henry loves Daddy … I mean, Daddy loves Henry … Not to say you don’t love Daddy, but I still got it backwards. So sorry if I confused you. But of course I didn’t confuse you because you are a dog and I might as well be speaking pig Latin. I am standing on a public street doing a monologue for a four-legged animal. I hope nobody is watching this … But Daddy loves Henry. Not the other way around. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

The point is, I wonder if that mix-up is a red flag of cognitive decline. I wonder especially because of what history will record as The Ketchup Incident. Yesterday afternoon I whisked some mayonnaise and ketchup into Russian dressing. Later, for dinner, I cooked a burger and decided, uncharacteristically, to add mustard and ketchup — but I couldn’t find the ketchup in the fridge. Glanced a second time, then, bottle by bottle, a third. WTF? Over the weekend, the kitchen scissors had gone missing, but this vanishing ketchup freaked me out. I scanned the countertop, the table, the fridge again until finally giving up. The burger was cooked and I needed a plate. And when I opened the cabinet … well, see the photo at the top of this column.

Red flag, all right. Tomato red. In with the china. Uh oh.

I knew, of course, what to do next:

Four score and seven years ago
Our father who art in heaven
Hallowed be his name
Coke and rum. Parumpumpum
To sleep perchance to dream.
Jumpin’ Jack flash. It’s a gas.
Whose fleece was white as snow.
O, Captain, my Captain. Our fearful trip is done. And miles to go before I sleep. Look out for number one.
The unexamined life is not worth living. I think therefore I am. Coke is it. Won’t hurt a bit. Girls just wanna have fun. I have a dream, Way to go, team. If we don’t win it’s a shame. I’m lookin’ over a four leaf clover. You’ve only yourself to blame. Here is the church here is the steeple. An accident of birth. The government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Oh, by the way, don’t fret about those kitchen scissors. I eventually located them right where I’d left them.

In the trash.