Mrs. Adams was preparing an early supper for her 12-year-old son so he could get to football practice on time. Everything was ready when she discovered she was almost out of ketchup. She was thumping away at the end of the nearly empty bottle when the phone rang. You know how you do that -- when the ketchup is scarce and it's hard to get out, you turn the bottle upside down and you thump on the bottom of it. Well she was doing this when the phone rang.

"Would you get that?", she called to her son. Obligingly, he picked up the phone and the mother could hear him say to the caller, "She can't come to the phone right now. She's hitting the bottle."

I hope whoever the caller was knew Mrs. Adams. Otherwise you can imagine all the things that went through her mind. The story gets at our theme …