The Hall of Condiments

by Jon Hartford

THE HALL OF CONDIMENTS

  by Jon Hartford

  Copyright 2011 Jon Hartford

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  "I hate my life and want to die." I said, rolling out of bed and stumbling towards the bathroom.

  "But it'll be tons of fun, Ken! The Hall of Condiments opens today! I can't believe it! The team and I have spent three or four years on it every day... or, well, sixteen months anyway!"

  "Stop ending all your sentences with exclamation marks," I mumbled, shoving the door closed behind me, "you're giving me a headache already."

  Stupid Ted. Stupid, stupid, stupid Ted... waking me up so early. It wasn't even... I checked the clock... nine-thirty yet. Okay, okay, he isn't stupid, actually, just a jerk. He makes at least half a million a year salary at Smegglr Research, and if he bothered to negotiate he could probably make twice that. He's a genius, really... member of Mensa, in fact. Or was--he quit a few years ago--said the magazine and all the meetings were boring and it wasn't worth the subscription. He's a miser, too, otherwise he wouldn't be renting an apartment with me.

  I couldn't find my toothbrush. Blecch, who needs to scrub their teeth anyway. At least there was soap so I could take a shower. "Hurry up in there! We're leaving in five minutes!" Or not. I pulled yesterday's clothes out of the hamper and changed. In my room I searched for fresh socks. What? I didn't wear yesterday's socks. That would just be wrong. Unconscionable. Immoral.

  There weren't any fresh socks in my dresser. Fine. Whatever. I heard Ted in the kitchen, bouncing off the walls so I went into his room to steal some socks. He didn't have any either. Wha..? He always had clean socks. I heard a sound behind me. The hamper was beckoning, calling my name. No. I put my shoes on without socks.

  At least there was coffee. I sighed in a moment of peaceful, innocent happiness and filled a mug. It was cold. Ted ricocheted past me and threw his breakfast dishes into the recycler, then grabbed his coat off the rack and bounced me out the door. Stupid rubber walls these days... I'll never get used to them.

  Our apartment is only three blocks from Smegglr, so Ted usually walks to his workplace. My employer is farther away, so I always take his hover car, of course. Three blocks doesn't seem like far, but with the horrible pollution we have in downtown California, no sane person would want to walk. I had the presence of mind to suggest taking the car. There was a very short argument, which ended when I realized Ted had the keys. We walked.

  We ran into Haruhi a block from Smegglr. Well, Ted drug me into her. Not hard though to knock her over, but hard enough to help wake me up.

  "Kenny-chan! :) Good moooooorrrrrnnniiiinnnnggg. Look what I made... =^_^="

  Ugh? It was a stuffed bunny. It was made out of socks. It was hideous. Wait... were those MY socks? How did she get into our apartment? "How did you get into our apartment?" I asked.

  "Teddy let me in. 8)" Duh.

  "We talked for hours this morning about the awesome cute technology demo we finalllllllly finished and are soooooooo happy it's done and it's, like, awesome, and I'm, like, soooooo thrilled you're coming to see it, Kenny-chan. ^o.o^ You're such a great person to want to see it and...." Ugh. I mumbled under my breath that I didn't really want to see it. The gull-wing doors to the bottom floor of the SMGLRHQ skyscraper opened and we went inside. "...And that's why it's soooo awesomely great. ^_^ You'll love it." The doors slammed shut.

  We took the elevator up to the twenty-ninth level. The guards rolled their eyes and moved as far away as possible when they saw us coming. I tried to squirm away and make excuses, but Haruhi and Ted had me, one firmly gripping each arm. They babbled about the project the whole way. The elevator scanned Ted's eye before we could get off on the next-to-top floor. The door opened to reveal a huge banner in devious pink text on a rabbid fuchsia background set in Comic Sans MS loudly proclaiming, "Welcome to teh Hall of Condiments! :D"

  “Wha..? This is what you've been working on for the past..."

  "Sixteen months!"

  "...sixteen months. The Hall of..."

  "CONDIMENTS!" They shouted together. They seemed horribly over-enthusiastic about the whole thing. "And just looooooook at the CUTE banner I made! :D"

  "Yeah, that's a total surprise. I'd never have guessed it was your work."

  Balloons and confetti littered the area. The colors made me want to rip my eyes out and squeeze them into jelly. Wait, is jelly a condiment? I suppose so...

  The entryway room was small and a couple of turnstiles were placed in the only opening into the rest of the floor, which had a big cardboard cut-out around it to make it look like you were going into somebody's mouth. The two of them shoved me through and we stepped onto a moving walkway. The walkway wound through the huge empty room in big loops along the floor. The end of it disappeared through a passageway in a wall on the other side of the room. Light streamed in through the windows along the other two walls. Nothing else was in the room. I looked at Ted, then at Haruhi, then back at Ted. They giggled.

  Ted pushed a button on the control panel and the walkway started rolling us along the insane scribble of walkalator. I glanced back at the room and fell over as a giant head in the shape of a wide-mouth jar jumped up out of the floor in front of me. It was wearing a crown. I screamed.

  ">:D Our presentation is all totally materialized with matter synthesizers, Kenny-chan. Isn't the mayonnaise king cuuuutee??? :D *dance*"

  "The mayonnise KING?" I started hyperventilating. "I HATE mayo."

  Ted took me by the shoulder and started talking quickly, "What we have here is a trans-physical materialistic translator muxed with a wireless biocortex scanner which dynamically reprograms..."

  "ENGLISH?"

  ";_; It's sooooo simple. :) What Teddy is trying to tell you is that the matter that is projected in the presentation is customized to your what you're thinking."

  "What? How?"

  "By reading your brain! :D"

  Vegetable growths popped up throughout the room, turning it into a forest pathway with mini-demonstrations and floating semi-transparent charts and dancing bottles of ketchup. Shades drew over the windows automatically and a disco ball sun disguised as bowl of cheese dip lowered from the ceiling. The mayo king leered at me for a moment. "Welcome to ye olde realm of the condiment! Today you'll learn all about the different toppings, dressings and sauces in my kingdom." Haruhi and Ted bowed in front of the mayo jar.

  "No way." I said and turned around to find the exit. A mustard squeeze-bottle dressed like a knight barred my way, holding a pickle spear. My mouth hung open and the walkway moved onwards.

  In the distance a castle made out of pretzels and cheese sticks dominated the landscape. Trees of cauliflower and broccoli stood on each side of the walkway, now paved with cold cuts. We went around a bend in the forest trail and I saw a bridge made of carrot sticks spanning the gap over a lazy river of flowing onion and chive dip. My mouth started watering. We followed the mayo king across the carrot stick bridge and saw the fields of bread where peanut butter and jelly jar people were irrigating the ground with watering cans full of salad dressing.

  Ted spoke up. "What we're doing here is trying to educate people about the foods many take for granted and make them realize the utter necessity of worshiping food. It's also a marketing tie-in with some of our other company divisions..." A mixed company of nuts carrying a glittering rock salt throne came up and bowed in front of the mayo king. He climbed into it and they raised him to their shoulders. A celery stick in peanut butter chain mail marched up smartly, bowed and turned to us. "As new subjects of the realm of king Mayo the Fourth, you must bow before him to show your appreciation of his kingdom of condiment-land."

  "Uh, I would, you know, except, and I don't want you
to take this wrong or anything...I HATE mayo." The king frowned slightly. "And I'm getting really hungry."

  The celery stick waved his cinnamon stick baton. "Well I suppose you don't have to bow, but you can't eat here. Everything in our beautiful landscape is very important to us and..." My mouth was watering. The celery stick's peanut butter chain mail glistened in the fog. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bit its head off.

  It was good. The best celery stick I'd ever had. I chewed thoughtfully. Everyone was staring at me. "Sorry about that, I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast this morning..."

  "Guards! De-Unhand those murderers!" The mayo king called out. Instantly I was surrounded by angry mustard bottle knights. "Throw these wretched scum in the dungeon! They're traitors from a far away land come to stop us from expanding our foodstuffs kingdom!" The knights poked at me with their pickle spears and prodded us towards the castle.

  "This is all part of the simulation, right, Ted?" I