One of my co-workers asked me to stay a few minutes late to help tidy up the office area for the big meeting tomorrow. I agreed without hesitation, but when he asked, “You don’t have to be anywhere, do you?” I said, “No, but I’ve been really anxious to clean all the ketchup off my car.”

The look on his face told me I had to explain.

Late last night, someone threw ketchup on my car. There were huge big gobby streaks along the driver’s side. I was not happy. I was beyond not happy. I was extremely not happy. I was the opposite of happy… I was… oh, what’s the friggin word?... MAD, I was MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

I couldn’t find an open car wash at that hour, and I was already running late for work, so I drove to work with ketchup streaks on my car.

I thought about it all day. The meek, slowly developing, “Positive,” function in my brain told me to relax. “Hey, at least they didn’t smash your window.” Or, “Don’t worry, maybe it was an accident.”

An accident?! How do you manage an accident like that!? Are you roller skating down the road with an order from Burger King at 3 AM? Do you mistake the car for a giant hot dog? No, strange whispering voice in my head, this was an attack on my car!

But I’m over it now. I brought the car home and washed it (you know, it’s really hard to be sure you’ve cleaned every last bit of ketchup off a red car) and that was that. Back to life as normal.

Be let me tell you, if I go out there tomorrow and there’s mustard on my car, I’m going to kill somebody.