Why I hate a food you probably love: mustard

My life would be much easier if I enjoyed mustard.I imagine myself befriending Jewish deli owners, high-fiving strangers on the streets of Chicago between bites of hot dog, and being welcomed with open arms into German citizens' private, expensively appointed mustard-colored salons. But because my mouth thinks mustard tastes like a mixture of sweat and mold, I'm considered a freak, an outcast, a treacherous troublemaker by these fine people and pretty much everyone else who regularly consumes sandwiches.It's near-impossible to avoid mustard, because the entirety of humanity slathers a layer of it across almost every meat product BY DEFAULT -- without even asking if you have some lingering irrational childhood aversion to yellow-colored foodstuffs, or if you just don't enjoy the way the mutant sour/savory/spicy flavor envelops even the most delicious tastes in a moist blanket of pungency.

But excuse me if my taste buds don't cut the mustard (also: that joke is not original -- many people have made it towards me). Despite your cleverness, I don't want a jiggling dollop of mustard seed paste fart-squeezed from a crusty-tipped plastic bottle that's been accumulating germs since way past the 'best by' date, while being moved in and out of refrigeration like a foul-smelling stepchild tossed between sanitary and unsanitary parents.

Most Americans have custody of at least two varieties of rotting mustard in their fridge, but mustard is actually only the seventh best-selling condiment in the nation. French's trails four different types of mayo, as well as Heinz and the bafflingly popular Tostito's salsa. You heard that right: more people buy the worst salsa in the known universe than that yellow specter of horror.

French's sells roughly 50 million bottles per year, a figure which gives me a debilitating headache throughout my entire body. The product was introduced at the 1904 World Fair, whose main attractions included incubated fetuses and elephants forced to go down waterslides. We've deemed both of those practices uncouth, but, for some reason, mustard is still acceptable, except when converted into gas form... which was justifiably banned by the UN in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. I assure you, no one's lungs are blistering due to exposure to ketchup gas.

And I know many people might say ballpark mustard is not the real stuff, but adding a bit of honey or spice or beer is really just a waste of those ingredients. The mustard will still taste like mustard, which makes anything you put it on taste like it's been sitting out in the sun all day and been licked by a hungry stray dog that would have a tough time choosing between a pile of mustard and its own excrement.

Sure, you might say, "why don't you just quit whining and wipe the default mustard off your food, you handsome food vigilante?!?", but much like its sour partner in burger ruination, the pickle, mustard contaminates anything it touches, even if you very carefully use a napkin to wipe it off a burger bun or a hot dog or the gagging inside of your mouth while silently screaming in horror.

Every so often, I do give mustard another chance to see if my taste buds have devolved into a state that would embarrass my former self. The last time I tried this, I nearly vomited. It was on top of a bratwurst that had gummi bears in it. And it was the mustard that was the disgusting part.

And lastly, every time I play Clue, I know EXACTLY WHO THE MURDERER IS, and there's no way I'm letting that killer into my candlestick-, wrench-, lead pipe-, knife-, and rope-filled kitchen. I'd rather see you in hell, Colonel.