The Condiment Kingpin of Kalamazoo


Meet Gregory Farnsworth III — inventor, visionary, mastermind, and all-around ketchup kleptomaniac. To the untrained eye, Gregory looked like your average balding 42-year-old man with a suspicious trench coat and an aura of expired mustard. But behind those twitching eyes was a brain pulsing with one singular, obsessive idea:

Free condiments = pure profit.

It all began one fateful Tuesday when Gregory, broke and bitter after being rejected for a Shark Tank pitch involving edible shoelaces, unwrapped a burger at BurgerHut and noticed—eight ketchup packets. He had only used one. The rest? Untapped wealth. Gold in tomato form. Gregory pocketed them.

He soon returned to that same BurgerHut every day, asking for "just a few more salt packets" with every free water cup. At night, he’d pour his haul into labeled mason jars in his basement lab, which was just a card table surrounded by empty McNugget boxes and a poorly taxidermied raccoon wearing a chef hat.

Soon Gregory had a full collection:

  • "FarmFresh Fusion™ Sea Salt" (actually just Wendy’s salt packets)

  • "Cracked Artisan Black Pepper™" (pilfered from Taco John's)

  • "Homestyle Tomato Reduction™" (80% McDonald's ketchup, 20% Heinz stolen from gas stations)

Each condiment was repackaged in tiny glass vials, complete with artisanal fonts and a backstory involving a fictional family of Peruvian alpaca herders.

He started selling his collection at local farmer’s markets under the brand name:
"Farnsworth's Fine Table Spritzes™" — Elevate Your Meal with a Dab of Questionable Origin."

But the packets… the tiny packets… oh, they were slow. Each required tearing, squeezing, and often ended with a squirt to the eye. Gregory wept not from the burn of vinegar, but from the inefficiency.

“I am a visionary,” he told his raccoon assistant. “Visionaries do not tear tiny packets. They siphon.”

And so, he escalated.

Gregory began frequenting sit-down restaurants. Olive Garden. IHOP. Applebee’s. Denny’s. He was everywhere, ordering the cheapest item on the menu — a side of toast, a bowl of air — and requesting “extra condiments, please.”

Inside his trench coat, he’d rigged a system of flexible food-grade tubing connected to a series of flasks, bladders, and a custom 3D-printed shoulder-mounted vinegar reservoir. It looked like a homemade Iron Man suit designed by someone raised by squirrels.

The extraction routine:

  1. Distract the waiter by crying about how pepper reminds him of his late aunt.

  2. Unscrew salt shaker cap. Insert mini vacuum pump.

  3. Siphon contents through armpit tubing.

  4. Smile and leave a Yelp review titled “Soul-healing ketchup, service could be quieter.”

By month four, he had enough raw product to fill a kiddie pool. He took to blending his stolen ingredients in his bathtub, using a stolen restaurant breadstick as a stirring paddle.

But his downfall came not from the FBI, nor local health inspectors, but from a rival condiment smuggler named Brenda “The Relish Wraith” McDougal, who had been stealing mayonnaise from gas stations since 2002.

She reported Gregory to the National Condiment Integrity Bureau (NCIB) — a secret government agency founded by Ronald Reagan after a mustard-related coup attempt in 1987.

The raid was swift. The charges were severe:

  • Grand Theft Pepper

  • Possession of an Unlicensed Mustard Cache

  • Intent to Distribute Diluted Ranch

Gregory’s trial was televised. The courtroom smelled faintly of barbecue sauce. When asked to speak, Gregory stood, eyes wide, hair slicked with stolen olive oil, and shouted:

“YOU LAUGHED AT ME, BUT YOU ALL EAT MY CRIMES EVERY DAY! I AM THE SAUCE IN YOUR FRIDGE. I AM THE PEPPER IN YOUR LIFE. I AM THE SUGAR BEHIND THE LIES!”

He was sentenced to house arrest and mandatory packet-tearing rehab.

But legend has it, if you go to any shady alleyway behind a Red Lobster and knock three times, a man in a trench coat might whisper:

“Psst. You want the real Sriracha? Farm-to-palm. No questions.”

And just like that, Gregory Farnsworth III lives on — in every unlabeled squirt bottle... and every suspiciously gourmet ketchup at your local flea market.

Long live the Condiment King.

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