My quest...

...for yellow mustard.

My job requires me to travel... A LOT. That means I often arrive at my hotel room late in the evening and hungry. I usually order something from room service, something I wouldn't normally do if I were traveling on my own dime because it's a rip-off. Between the inflated prices delivery charges, the service charge, and the "optional additional tip" a cheeseburger turns into a $30 meal.

So I get to my room tonight and order my burger. I specifically ask for yellow mustard in addition to the fixings that come with it. Of course when they bring it up they tell me they don't have yellow mustard. Now call me old fashioned but I don't understand how you can sell a burger and not carry yellow mustard.

Dijon mustard and brown mustard like Gulden's are fine but they are a different condiment, not a substitute for the real thing, yellow mustard. It's like ordering mayo and them bringing horseradish. "They're both white,” the server might say.

The last place I ever thought I'd encounter the yellow mustard shortage was on the streets of New York. But it's happened to me. The hot dog and pretzel vendors all have brown mustard but a very rare few have yellow mustard. Once outside Yankee Stadium, I wanted to buy a pretzel and I searched high and low for a vendor with yellow mustard. I finally found one with the bright yellow squeeze bottle sitting right on his cart. I ordered the pretzel and when I squeezed that bottle, out came brown mustard. Maybe I'm a curmudgeon but I long for the good old days before lousy limousine-riding snobs asked each other if they had any Grey Poupon.