Ketchup Man

My Sunday trip to NYC was spent doing errands, since after a spirited email exchange with my high school friends Jordan and Christine we realized next weekend would work better for them to meet up. My big task was to get measured for a tux for my friend Jamie's wedding, an errand that was complicated by the fact that the Puerto Rican Day Parade was going down 5th Avenue. Streets were closed off, making me have to walk about twenty blocks out of my way and battle the masses before finally arriving at the Men's Warehouse at Madison and 46th. I hadn't planned on getting measured when I woke up, so I had just rolled out of bed, got dressed, put on some flip flops and left the ship. By the time I arrived at the store, I was fairly sweaty and my feet had a fine layer of New York grit on them. So I'd like to apologize to the young woman who had to measure me. I hope you work on commission.

When I was in Pittsburgh last September, I went to the Heinz Ketchup Gift Shop and bought a red t-shirt with the Heinz Ketchup logo emblazoned on the front. This was the shirt I was wearing in the city yesterday, and it was a huge hit. A little girl called me “ketchup man,” a group of guys on their way to the parade shouted across the street, “Holla back at your boyz, ketchup man,” the cashier at Whole Foods pointed it out to her coworker, and the clerk at Barnes and Noble said, “I like your shirt. It's very colorful.” The capper was when I was crossing the street, a guy yelled at me if I was from Pittsburgh. I said no, that I had just visited there. He said he had lived there for a year and a half and then pointed at my shirt, saying, “That place is like the shit over there. They have all the fucking jobs.”