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Please post something funny. This group is dying and Joon wanted me to add something amazing. I'm trying my best.

MURDER AT THE CONDIMENT MUSEUM

“What is going on here?�� A deep voice bellowed from the entryway.

Ethel Thumpingstone, Gladly Hoplenut and Inspector Nadaklu turned from the viscous blood stain to find a large rotund man wearing a bright yellow shirt with blue suspenders and a long handlebar moustache walking towards them. In his wake trailed a frail mousey woman carrying a teetering stack of papers in one hand while her other hand, index finger extended, was under her pointed nose trying to hold back a sneeze.

Professor Delburton DeJohn was the Chairman of the Emeritus Society of Mustard. His famous dissertation on Asclepius, the Greek god of healing who is believed to have created mustard, had brought him fame and fortune in the condiment world, and he flouted his notoriety with gusto. The woman behind him was his assistant, Blanche Moutard.

“Professor,�� Gladly exclaimed. “The night watchman is missing and we’ve found a pool of…�� he turned back to the blood stain that was now a sickly brown color. “…oh yuck.��

“And who would you be, sir?�� Chief Inspector Nadaklu addressed the Professor, flipping his notepad to a new page and licking the tip of his yellow pencil. Standard operating procedure required that he use a separate page for each potential suspect.

“Harumph,�� the portly Professor hitched his suspenders up, the buttons of his bright yellow shirt straining to hold the material together. How was it possible that this man did not recognize him? His eyes grew cold. Was this a ketchup lover? The Professor was not fond of ketchup lovers. His life had been devoted to mustard and he felt that mustard often got a bad rap when it was compared to the other condiments. Relish was fine, mayonnaise was okay they knew their place, but ketchup was arrogant and not to be trusted.

The Professor believed that anyone who chose ketchup over mustard had been brainwashed, by a hungry public that preferred the color red over yellow. And that was what it was all about wasn’t it? Color. Mustard had gotten second choice. Ketchup came along and got red so mustard had been left with yellow. Sure, relish got to be green, but who wanted a green condiment? And that left what? White…mayonnaise, salad dressing? No thank you.

Before things could get out of hand, Gladly quickly made introductions. He knew the Professor’s idiosyncrasies and felt it important to keep things moving smoothly for the Inspector’s investigation, an investigation that would have gone much smoother had not Blanche Moutard taken that exact moment to sneeze and send the stack of papers fluttering in every direction.

“Bless you�� everyone said in unison.

Blanche stood in shock. It was the first time in her whole life that she had actually sneezed. And that would have been remarkable, even if she had not immediately sneezed again. But sneeze again she did …and again after that.

“Bless you, bless you,��

Shaking off her initial shock at having sneezed for the first time in her life Blanche made to gather the scattered papers…but this only set off another round of sneezes and she gave up.

The Inspector didn’t want any more disturbance of the crime scene anyway. A stack of irrelevant papers scattered everywhere was more than enough disturbance. He grabbed Gladly by the elbow. “Can you take everyone to your office so I can question them?��

“Gladly,�� said Gladly, but as he turned to usher the group out of the room his eyes fell on a large glass display case on the far wall. “Oh, my heavens!�� he exclaimed. “It’s gone.��

All eyes turned to the display case. It sat upon a carved marble pedestal with a red velvet stand inside it. The door to the case was ajar. Ajar meaning that the door was slightly open and not that there was a jar of mustard. In fact a jar of mustard was exactly what was not there. It was gone.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE
Murder at the Condiment Museum

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Aaron Hoopes

That is very interesting. What kind of name is "Hoplenut"? I don't think it's Canadian or German...