SILVER SPRING, MD—Wednesday this week, officials from the Food and Drug Administration gathered for an urgent press conference at their Maryland headquarters. The preceding release gave little detail regarding the nature of the conference, but such haste usually indicates a wide-scale food recall or other urgent call to change consumption habits. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the chief of the F.D.A., took the podium Wednesday afternoon, just shortly after lunch, he wasted no time getting to his message.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, and my fellow Americans, thank you for coming so quickly," he began in a clearly unscripted statement. "I—we here at the F.D.A. have recently learned of a condition involving bottles of prepared mustard. Now, this appears to affect any brand of mustard, in glass or plastic containers, apparently. I'm guessing it's not so much an issue with those mustards that come in tubes like toothpaste, but I'm not really into those anyway, so—but the point is that we strongly recommend all people within the sound of my voice be sure to vigorously shake your mustard containers before trying to put their contents onto a hamburger."
The 45-year-old New Jersey native then went on for several minutes about the dangers of failing to heed these warnings. Among his comments were, "Just trust me, you don't want to know what will happen if you grab the bottle out of the fridge, flip it open, and just start squeezing all willy-nilly."
Dr. Gottlieb appeared quite flustered throughout his remarks. It is customary for the President-Trump-appointee to wear a tie with his collared shirt at these events, but he had no tie on despite still wearing the jacket. He seemed to make a clear effort to keep the folds of his jacket covering his tie-less shirt as he answered questions from the press.
The first question asked whether the people of the U.S. are in any danger, to which Gottlieb gave an indirect, but ominous response. "Well, I don—Yeah, you know, I think that's safe to say that yes, they are. I mean, I would not classify it as 'safe' to overturn a mustard bottle that had been sitting, and just start applying as much force as you want. I would definitely not call that 'safe.'"
Another reporter asked whether hospitals should be on standby for any related issues. Gottlieb replied, "No, it's nothing like that, but maybe just have a bunch of napkins near you if you have any doubts that you shook the bottle within an inch of its life." He offered no clarification for what he meant by that.
At this point, Gottlieb abruptly ended the conference, saying only, "Okay, I'm sorry, but I have to now go and find something to eat. Thank you all, and for God's sake, whatever you do, shake those mustard bottles like your life depends on it." He then exited the stage.
In an unfortunate side effect of the bizarre press meeting shrouded in mystery, a few people have attempted to use their mustard bottles after purposefully ignoring the F.D.A. chief's beseeching, reportedly ruining their foods, and in some cases their clothing, as a clear substance is projected onto their would-be meals before anything that could be described as mustard. One social media user who posted a live video of the attempt said afterward, "Oh, gross! What is that stuff? Man, that dude [Gottlieb] was right!"