If you ask me if I have mustard, I just might slap you...

I hate mustard. Growing up, I never liked it on sandwiches, hot dogs, or hamburgers. I don't like the way it tastes by itself at all. As a teenager, I found that I did like just a hint of it to make the perfect potato salad. When I went to college, they had a perfect blend of mayo and mustard that they called sandwich spread. It was amazing. The mustard was barely detectable but it gave the sandwich that little something extra. Just after my mission, I was at my grandma's house and I heard my aunt say, "Dad used to always say that to make the perfect sandwich the mustard needs to be touching the meat." I was intrigued by that statement and wondered if it really mattered where you put the mustard in the sandwich. I started craving a hint of mustard on sandwiches when I was pregnant with Miana. I still don't like the way it tastes by itself, but I usually like just a hint of it on sandwiches. I do think the sandwich tastes better when there is a little mustard next to the meat, I don't know if that's a fact or if that's because I think of my grandpa every time I am putting it on my sandwich. No matter the reason, I choose to have mustard in my house. Some days I wish I didn't.

Miana got a brand new bottle of mustard out of the pantry, opened it, took the foil seal off the inside, and dumped the entire bottle on the carpet in the dining room. (Those of you wondering where I was, I was playing with Carter in the next room. Miana often plays quietly with her dolls in the dining room. She was in with me just a few minutes before this was discovered.) Here is the carpet after scraping off globs of mustard, cleaning it with the Bissel spotlifter, using 2 different kinds of carpet cleaner, a Hoover steam cleaner, Wink laundry stain cleaner, RIT tough stain remover, oxy clean, and pouring Clorox 2 directly on the carpet. I think I went over it about 30 times with the steam cleaner. This is the current (and permanent) state of our dining room carpet.

Paige asked me if we could buy a rug to cover the stain. I said, "You mean like the one already in the room that we bought to cover the big blue stain in the center of the room that Spencer did when he was Miana's age?" Yes, I've been here before. I will likely be here again.

It may not matter where you put the mustard in a sandwich, but it does matter where you put it in the pantry.