DareMe: SPF Ketchup

Ahhh. Today was a beautiful almost summer day in Rhode Island! The sun was shining, people were smiling, and the rest of them were stuck in beach traffic. For the lucky few who made it out to the beach before the sun went down, I just have to say – if you were in the crowd taking pictures of the following, would you pretty please send them to me?

An anonymous follower of “DareMe” wrote me an email as follows: “Go to the beach and walk around covered in ketchup.” Now, I see the hilarity in that (sort of), so I decided to expand on that idea. I would try to convince people to willingly cover me and themselves in ketchup.

I arrived at Narragansett Beach with a towel, sunblock, and a large bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup and approached a man in a baseball cap lounging in his beach chair.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you put some sunblock on my back?” I had every intention of handing him the ketchup and trying to convince him to put it on my back, but he looked at me and winked.

“Of course. At your ripe age, it’s always good to use protection.” Talk about innuendos. I wanted to walk away, but my brain was churning and my plans quickly changed. I pulled out the sunblock and let him rub it in. “Why do you have a bottle of ketchup?” he snorted.

“Oh, I usually use it as a sunblock, but I already did my dose this morning while lying on my deck.”

“What were you wearing when you were in your ketchup?” he laughed. Uh. I ignored his question.

“Anyway, it’s a really amazing antioxidant. The beta-carotene and lycopene in the tomatoes actually increase the skin’s ability to resist the effects of UV light and prevent prostate cancer.” This is actually true, but you have to eat it, not bask in it. He finally finished putting on the hundredth layer of sunblock.

“Really? Prostate cancer?” He spread his legs. “You can …” Before he could finish I reached down and grabbed the ketchup bottle.

“Here, I’ll put it on for you!”

“I was just kiddin’ …”

“And you have to keep it on for at least three hours.” He stood frozen and I quickly squirted the entire bottle all over his body and onto his hands. “Rub it into your face,” I demanded. Surprisingly, he obliged without a comeback. Within seconds, a crowd started to form and cell phones came out to snap pictures and record videos. I must have been laughing so hard on the inside that I didn’t notice the tall, leather-skinned woman with overly bleached blonde hair standing next to me.

“RICHARD!” (Of course his name was Dick.) “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?” He didn’t respond. Her hands started waving around frantically. “WHY ARE YOU COVERED IN KETCHUP?! FIRST IT’S THE MONKEY, THEN IT’S THE RUSSIAN, NOW, KETCHUP?!” Oh God. I slowly backed away. “No, wait, wait, wait, Missy! Who are YOU?” I kept walking backward.

“I really have to go! My dog is in the car!” She must have had a dog and sympathized because she stopped talking. I turned around about to run like hell. “Oh, and Dick,” I yelled. “Good luck with your prostate!”

Yosefa Leora Kornwitz is a comedy writer born and bred in Rhode Island. She can be contacted at yomotif@gmail.com. Follow her at @goagnome on Instagram.