I’d like to think that most criminals get their due. A horrible mishap that I had at my summer job this summer, though, has changed my mind. Now, I’m more inclined to think that for every criminal that gets punished, there must be 10 that fly under the radar.  

The scene:  my summer job  at a restaurant which will remain nameless. The players: me, a group of middle-schoolers, and a industrial sized jar of barbecue sauce. Every night at six, we served dinner to the whole group.  On this particular evening, we had a group of 85 sixth graders coming in for a chicken nugget supper. About 15 minutes before dinner time, my boss sent me downstairs to get a jar of barbecue sauce. I was about five hours into a long shift and feeling silly. Not violent, destructive, or drunk—just chastely, innocently silly.  I went down to the storeroom, picked up the jar of barbecue sauce, and put it on my head, like a Jamaican banana saleswoman. It seemed like a good idea. As I headed toward the stairs, I shook my hips left and right, imagining a crowd of admirers (let’s be honest, female admirers) oohhing and ahhing at how funny I was. I climbed the first two stairs before remembering too late that the ceiling was very low above the third.  

I missed the clearance. The barbecue sauce flew backwards and exploded. Many people exaggerate with the word “exploded,” but I don’t. There was barbecue sauce seven feet up on the walls. It had gathered in pools on the stairs. It looked like I had brutally and messily murdered a giant cockroach.  

After a few seconds of numbness, I started to panic. If anyone saw this, I would be fired. Not because it was necessarily such a big deal, but because it looked so bad.  

I came back upstairs, trying to be cool. We were only 15 minutes until dinner, so there was a lot to do. Upstairs, I would act as though nothing was wrong, and then go downstairs to scrape barbecue sauce into a bucket with a dough scraper. Bring the boss an onion, then go leap up and down with a bleached cloth to reach the highest signs of the explosion.  

Miraculously, the end was eventually into sight. I had soaked five rags completely through with sauce, but it started to look better. After about 30 minutes of on-and-off-again cleaning, the job was done.  

I am still waiting for the arm of justice to come down on me. Until it does though, the only traces of my crime are a slight discoloration in the wall around the third stair and a faint hickory smell.