The Condiment Packet Problem

The bag of condiment packets sits, harmlessly enough, on the second shelf of my tiny pantry. I hate throwing out things that may come in handy someday (which is why I also have approximately three trillion plastic bags, most from Target and Wal-Mart, crammed into several giant garbage bags in my garage). My bag of condiment packets has saved the day on more than one occasion. You never know when the fine young men and women working at Taco Bell will forget to give you your requested condiments with your order--and there's just no replacement for genuine Taco Bell taco sauce (I prefer "mild"; my husband likes them all).

But lately we've been accumulating condiment packets at an alarming rate. We didn't request all of these condiments--honestly we didn't! But they keep showing up, underneath the onion rings and fries in our Sonic bag, filling every inch of free space in our bag of Chinese delivery. I don't even save the soy sauce, duck sauce, and hot mustard packets we get from our favorite Chinese restaurant anymore. I die a little every time I chuck them into the trash, but I just don't have room for them in my bag of "higher priority" condiment packets.

I organized my pantry recently, and decided I should go through the bag of condiments as well. I thought I'd try to dispose of the oldest packets, even though I have no way of knowing which are the oldest because they're not marked with a date. This is what I found (and, yes, these results will horrify health-conscious people. Turn away, celery-for-lunch folks! Turn away!):

Taco Bell

Mild sauce: 34 packets
Hot sauce: 34 packets
Fire sauce: 21 packets

Long John Silver's

Tartar sauce: 47 packets
Malt vinegar: 56 packets
Cocktail sauce: 6 packets
Honey mustard: 3 packets

Sonic

Heinz ketchup: 15 packets
Salt: 7 packets

Schlotzsky's Deli

Louisiana hot sauce: 11 packets
Sargento grated Parmesan cheese: 3 packets

Kari-Out Co. (from our favorite Chinese restaurant--I guess I didn't get them all thrown out)

Duck sauce: 8 packets
Soy sauce: 6 packets
"Panda mustard": 1 packet

Other Heinz ketchup (with no restaurant name specified on the packet): 5 packets

What's up, Long John Silver's? We eat Taco Bell three times as often as we eat Long John Silver's, but I have tartar sauce coming out my ears and malt vinegar out the wazoo. The numbers don't lie: LJS is the most generous (or the most wasteful?) with their condiment packets. (Maybe it's only the LJS in Merriam, Kansas that is condiment-happy. The one in your neighborhood might be downright stingy.)

Isn't it interesting that I have no condiments from McDonald's in my collection--not a single one? (And I have two young children who think Happy Meals are the pinnacle of fine dining.) Is that the mark of a successful fast-food chain? "Only give your drive-thru customers ketchup when they specifically request it. One ketchup packet per fifty fries is adequate. If any employee is caught giving ketchup packets to customers who did not request ketchup, immediate job-termination may result."

It is fun to speculate about how much money my local Long John Silver's may be losing every year in condiment packet reorders. But that doesn't help me with my problem. What on earth am I going to do with all these condiment packets? I'm scared that some of them are too old to safely consume; and all the rest of them just annoy the heck out of me. But I don't want to throw them away! I need a craft project involving a variety of condiment packets, or a recipe using only condiments. Sweet 'n sour tartar sauce soup, anyone? Ketchup Parmesan Soy paté?

I did a bit of checking on the internet, and made a fantastic discovery: Chris Harne's condiment packet collection! Check it out at: http://condimentpacket.com. Here's a man who appreciates condiment packets! He's been collecting them since 2003, and now has over 700 unique condiment packets. Chris is always on the lookout for new or rare condiment packets that he doesn't already have. Send him a condiment packet that he adds to his collection, and you will receive a "Condiment Packet Gallery" pin!

I searched Chris' collection for Schlotzsky's Louisiana hot sauce, and didn't see it anywhere. Does this mean I may have found a permanent home for one of my condiment packets? Oh, the thought makes me giddy.

As for the 249 other condiment packets in my bag, I think...I think I may ask my husband to throw out the majority of them one night when I'm not home. I just can't bear to do it myself. My condiment packets are a part of me and my family--a record of evenings spent at the dinner table scarfing down fried fish, or Sonic onion rings, or vegetable lo mein. "You should cook more!" they cry out from the second shelf in my pantry. "I know," I reply, hanging my head in shame. And all I hear is their laughter: ketchup giggles, tartar sauce guffaws, soy sauce snickers.

The sooner my husband gets rid of these darn condiment packets, the better.