Six Degrees of Separation: From Ketchup to Sex

All conversations lead to sex. At least when the women in my family get together.

Sometimes it’s a normal progression.

For instance, talking about the best way to steam vegetables inevitably leads to how to pick a ripe zucchini. Which naturally opens up the door to the male penis.

Once through that opening, a cousin might compare her very large boyfriend’s maleness to the size of the large cucumber she is peeling.

Thus, explaining why she’s been walking like a cowboy all afternoon.

Sometimes it’s not an obvious path.

Take ketchup.

My dad liked to put that staple on everything. So, when we’re passing the bottle across the table, my ninety-four-year-old mom often gets this dreamy look in her eyes and starts telling us, her daughters, granddaughters and great daughters about the time she and my dad “boinked like bunnies” on the very table where we are now sharing a nice Sunday dinner.

Hold the ketchup, please.

And other times it’s like a running through a maze.

Turn right into potty training, left to legalizing pot, another turn into weeding, backtrack to planting moon drop grapes and the next thing you know we run smack dab into sex. Again.

“You’re saying the width of the of man’s nail bed correlates to the size of his, um, apparatus?” That would be my mom.

“It’s true,” says my daughter, nodding like a happy bunny. “The wider the finger, the girthier his penis.”

“How do you know?” I ask. Nose and forehead wrinkled.

At that moment, in walks my daughter’s boyfriend.

As he grabs a cucumber off the table, my mom slaps at his hand. “Those are for dinner.”

She picks up his arm and studies his fingers.

“Oh, Honey.” She smiles at her granddaughter. “You’re one lucky girl.”

As my daughter’s boyfriend and his flat fingers leave the room, we all start laughing.

“So, as I was saying,” my mom goes on. “And it wasn’t just with ketchup. We had our shrimp cocktails and then…”

Ketchup has never been the same since.