John Gage peered in the large black pot on the stove and sighed in frustration.

“You cooked way too many spaghetti noodles!”

Chet Kelly looked up from his task of making dinner, in which he was attempting to mix his home made pasta sauce in with the numerous noodles. There wasn’t near enough to cover them all.

“Or,” John’s partner Roy offered, “You could say he didn’t make enough sauce.”

“Whatever. Either way, Roy, the bottom line is, we’re gonna be stuck eating plain spaghetti and tha--”

Chet raised his right hand to silence the unhappy complainer.

“Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got a solution.”

They watched as he stepped over to the refrigerator, reached inside and was soon pouring about a half of bottle of ketchup into the pot.

“You can’t put ketchup on spaghetti! That’s for french fries an’ hamburgers. . .an’ hot dogs,” he added.

“I don’t know, Johnny, I think I just did.”

Gage looked to his partner for backup. Roy just shook his head, thoughts of going out for hamburgers and french fries on his mind.

“Man, I can’t wait to see the reaction you get from the others on this,” Gage stated, his words already ending Roy’s plan.

Though neither paramedic was anxious about eating the food, the price paid to see the rest of the crew try to chow it down would be worth it.

~*~*~

Captain Stanley wound another bite of spaghetti up on his fork as he commented, “You really outdid yourself this time, Kelly. This sauce is great!”

John and Roy looked on in disbelief, their food barely touched, while Chet gave them a smug grin.

“Thanks, Cap.”

“Any chance I can get the recipe from you?”

“Sure.”

Chet pushed his chair back from the table, stood and walked over to the refrigerator. He grabbed the ketchup bottle from inside and set it firmly on the table in front of the captain.

The senior officer gave a bewildered look as John and Roy exchanged amused glances. Of course there was more to the recipe, the original sauce. But they had to admire Chet’s blunt way of confessing the other. Just as they’d expected, the expression on their captain’s face was priceless. 

This story came to mind while washing the spaghetti pot today. While there are some good spaghetti sauce recipes using ketchup, I thought it would be fun to have the guys not keen on the idea.  :o)

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