Students and faculty across campus have been encouraging me to write about hard-hitting issues and important facts pertaining to Missouri Southern. That’s why I’m chosen to write this week’s column about ketchup packets.

I believe this is something pertinent to everyone on this campus. Most of us have to use the little ketchup packets in the Lion’s Den, and most of us love to eat fast food. Besides, I want to explain the huge ketchup stain I have on my shirt.

I got the stain while opening approximately my 342nd ketchup packet. It is widely known ketchup distributors put about two ketchup molecules per packet.

However, ketchup has a unique chemical composition. The two molecules in one packet, when combined with a white shirt, have the ability to multiply and form a glob impervious to any stain fighting substance in the world.

I’m going to pause for a moment, because I know somewhere out there, someone is reading this and thinking I’m making fun of ketchup as an attack on presidential candidate John Kerry, whose wife, Theresa Heinz-Kerry, is the ketchup queen of the world. But I will say, if they somehow would have revolutionized the ketchup packet industry, John Kerry would definitely be president.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, my now stained white shirt, which, as I write this, is forming a hard, thick crust I am hoping to remove with my fingernail.

So, while I’m waiting for it to dry, I’ll give you a brief history of ketchup packets.

They were invented the mid 1900s for soldiers overseas. They were used to flavor food and as a chemical warfare agent to stain the uniforms of their opposition.

Years later, ketchup packets were distributed to young children in their school lunches. The Reagan administration tried to pass a bill officially classifying ketchup as a vegetable. The bill failed in congress, saying tomatoes are a fruit.

Today, we still have ketchup available in packets at fast-food restaurants if you can persuade them to give them to you.

Most of the time, even if you order seven orders of french fries, it still takes an affidavit signed by Theresa Heinz-Kerry, allocating you one packet of ketchup, provided you spill most of it on your shirt.

Well, my shirt is now dry.

I’ve scraped the top layer of ketchup off of my shirt, revealing a dark, smelly stain that is now a permanent part of my shirt.

I’m thinking of getting some more ketchup and writing something clever, like “I feel like a rejected Teletubby.”