As Dad said, ‘They getcha!’

“That’s how they getcha.” That was one of my father’s favorite sayings, and with good reason. I agonize over the French and Russian dressing that clings to the inside of the bottle. You just can’t get that last bit. I’ve got ketchup’s number, though. I learned that the key ingredient that makes it flow is vinegar. When the bottle gets near the end I just add a little vinegar and I am back in business. I like vinegar and don’t mind. Use my ketchup, take your chances. Sometimes I take two bottles and invert one, balancing it on the other so that over a couple of hours the residue in the top runs into the bottom. You can do this indefinitely. Some of my ketchup contains traces that date back to the 1980s. I learned this trick from a diner.So the idea here is that you think you are getting more than you are. Sure, they put 12 ounces in the bottle, but you are only going to be able to get at 11.5. You have to buy more sooner than you should. Another way they accelerate sales is to make the bottle opaque. Now you cannot tell when you are running out unless the contents slosh around and even then you can’t get an exact reading. You have to buy more sooner than you planned. You may think that this does not matter because you are going to use it eventually anyway. Well, not if you die. My objective is to run out of everything on the day I meet my maker. Of course, this does encourage me to not run out of stuff. I figure as long as I’ve got stuff left in the bottle I am still good to go.There are 10 little coffee cakes in the box of one brand. So if I have one each day with my cup of coffee I am good for 10 days, right? Wrong. They are packaged in pairs in little cellophane bags. Some granola bars do this, too. I defy you to eat one and save the second one. It can’t be done. Your brain sees this as a serving and is not happy until the entire serving has been consumed. My brain sees an opened box of Cheez-Its the same way.Then there is the incredible shrinking package content. The box is still the same size, though. If you could find one of the old boxes you would see that the content used to be 16 ounces. Now it is 14 ounces. For the same price. Gotcha.Could you please pass the ketchup? Not that one … the new bottle.Bill Abrams resides, along with his many bottles of nearly empty ketchup, in Pine Plains.

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