Summer

This prompt was to describe a food experience...

I love ketchup.  I don’t just like it, I love it.  There are various pictures among our family members of me as a young toddler with ketchup everywhere and a few fries can be seen bobbing around in it.  Over the course of my life this love has never dulled or left me.  It has however hurt me.  Just once.

It was the summer of my freshman year in high school.  As most families do in the summer, we were having a barbecue.  Our picnic table was set up in the shade of our huge maple tree.  This tree was massive.  Its shape was perfect much like an umbrella over our large backyard.  In the fall, the tree would bloom into so many wonderful shades of yellows, reds, and oranges.  Some years it looked as if it was on fire; others it looked like the sun had come down from the sky and landed in the tree.  When the leaves eventually fell, they would create a blanket for the grass and my sister and I would spend endless hours raking them up and jumping in them.

This particular year, we sat down under the shade of the tree to a nice barbecue feast.  There were hamburgers, hot dogs, my mothers famous baked beans, and corn waiting to be drenched in butter and salt.  I carefully placed my hotdog in the bun and reached for the ketchup.  I shook it, careful not to have anything but the thick rich Heinz tomato syrup pouring on my perfectly charred hotdog.  As I popped the top on the ketchup bottle, I watched in horror as an arterial spray of red aimed straight for my father's white shorts. 

At that second I wished for a rewind button, or a time machine.  Neither of which I had at my disposal.  Each drop of red landed on his shorts, painting them as if it were blood from a opened wound. My heart pounded, as I braced myself for the yelling that was going to ensue.  I couldn’t tell you the exact words my father spoke, I only know they cut deep and the moment was forever etched into my mind.  It was an accident, I wanted to say.  I’m sorry, I wanted him to know.  But I didn’t say anything.  I was the quiet one after all, and so I just sat there wishing I could disappear.