So the smudge is back. What is the smudge you ask? When I was in 4th - 9th grade I had a habit of putting pens in my right front pocket. Now I wasn't a typical nerd in that I had a pocket protector. But I should have been. So what would invariably happen during the course of a week would be that I would chew on my pens, put them in my pocket and then they would leak ink all over my pockets. Now this showed up as a smudge on the outside of my jeans. Sometimes it was a red smudge, a blue smudge or a black smudge. Eventually most of my jeans had a combination of colors right where my pocket was. After a while I didn't care anymore.

Now in the past couple of months the memory of my smudge has come back full force. It is like the ghost of the smudge. It is like the sequal to the smudge. So say I get up in the morning and put on dockers khakis. By the time I get to my car there is this big black smudge over my right pocket. I check my pocket - no pens. Yesterday morning it happened so quickly I don't know what it was. I don't know how it gets there. As my wife was home yesterday she looked at my pants and shrieked. Why? Because she sees the smudge every day. She even takes them to the dry cleaner and they come back perfectly clean. Then within 15 minutes in the morning a new smudge arrives.

Today a coworker noticed the smudge. I have been trying to hide it by wearing a jacket. I can't explain it. I think what I will do will setup a video camera near my path to the car. Then I will analyze when the smudge occurs. I think the solution is to catch it on camera and analyze how it gets there. My current theory is that somehow there is something black on my car that rubs against my pants on the way to sit down, like maybe the inside of the door or something. I am like the bigfoot hunters. I am like searching for the loch ness monster. This time it is the Smudge Monster. Coming to theaters near you.