Condiment Porn

I had a weird moment one time in an Arby's in London, Ontario when I was young. It was the first time I'd been to Canada, and I was really excited to visit, as this was during the period where I watched Canadian television almost exclusively. We got a satellite dish from my uncle after they got cable, but we didn't pay for very many channels. I watched almost nothing except three CBC stations, MuchMusic, (we got on TV jumping around and acting stupid in front of their Queen St. Studios) and low-budget programs in various Inuit languages throughout most of my adolescence. My first real impression of Canada came in this Arby's. As I'm finishing up my roast beef sandwich and fries, I notice that almost everyone in the restaurant had ripped the whole top off of their ketchup packets and were dipping their fries into the packet instead of squeezing it out into a puddle and dipping in it. I was mesmerized. Did all Canadians eat their ketchup this way? On that same trip, I discovered malt vinegar in packets. Brilliant idea, hard to find in the states.
Ever since then I've loved packets of stuff from fast food restaurants. I always grab a few extras whenever I can and try to keep them around, a few in my backpack, a few in my desk at work. I think its a habit I picked up from my grandparents. They had a set of canisters on the kitchen counter, the one labeled "sugar" actually contained sugar. The ones labeled "flour, tea and coffee" were filled with candy bars, chewing gum, and condiment packets respectively.
They're always good to have around. I try to avoid incidents like today, when I had to take the almost empty bottle of soy sauce from the cupboard to work because I finally ran out of the handful of soy sauce packets G grabbed the other day when he went out for Sushi, and the lunch I prepared for today required a little dash of soy.
It seems someone loves these little packets of joy even more than I do.
Behold, The Condiment Packet Gallery
I especially love that you can search by sauce type, country of origin, or by restaurant.
I wish I could get brown sauce in packets somewhere in Portland. I love that stuff. Maybe at the Horse Brass...