Finger Food for Thought

Have you been following the story about the woman that found a finger in her bowl of chili in Las Vegas? I swear this isn’t a joke. She went into her local Wendys restaurant - you know, Dave Thomas, adopt a kid and all that - ordered a bowl of chili from the Wendys menu, sat down, dipped her spoon in, and lifted out a finger.

Wendys launched an investigation. They followed the trail of that bowl of chili all the way back to the guy that harvested the beans and found nothing. Everyone involved has ten fingers and ten toes and swore that they left their human body part collections at home that day. This bowl of chili should have been like any other that they serve and, according to their conclusions, there will have to be no change to the Wendys nutritional information sheet, “May contain up to 10% of the following…”

Yeah right, you say. We love a David and Goliath story. I know I do. Anytime it’s the little person v. the big corporation, even if it’s one that seems relatively untarnished like Wendys, most people seem eager to agree with the little person. I mean, for pity’s sake, the corporation has a team of lawyers and accountants all working to protect its ass while the little person is just a little person. A hapless victim, shouting for mercy as the storm of corporate malice buffets her poor soul about.

So when I read the first installment of this story a few weeks ago I naturally sided with the patron. How could this be anything but the corporation’s fault? And I don’t care if they followed the line back. Fingers freeze and kids, who populate the kitchens of these places, play practical jokes. Is there beef in Wendys chili? I don’t know Wendys chili recipe. But if there is any meat there’s all sorts of ways that a finger could make its way from the meat packing industry to the bowl and there’s no way that they could have exhausted EVERY possibility.

Then the next installment came out. This lady, Anna Ayala, isn’t unfamiliar with this sort of affair. According to Ken Ritter with the Associated Press this isn’t the first time that she’s been in court, always as a complainant. In 1998 she dragged an ex-boss through the system on charges of sexual harassment and in 2000 she went after an auto dealership, claiming that the wheel fell off of the car that they’d sold her. The wheel suit was dismissed when she fired her lawyer claiming that he’d threatened her. She even has a history with restaurants. Last year she accepted money from El Pollo Loco restaurant, claiming that their food made her daughter sick. I wonder how many fingers her daughter is sporting these days.

OK, these are all terrible things and if they all really happened to this woman, my heart goes out to her. But talk about a string of bad luck! She really should hire a body guard because at the rate she’s going something really bad is going to happen. Again, that’s assuming that all of these things are true.

And to one degree or another, they might have. If you’re looking for trouble or a reason to sue, you’ll find it. Maybe her boss once asked her to collate some papers and she honestly thought that he said “I’d like to fondle you inappropriately.” Maybe the wheel on her car did fall off because she believed that the finance guy at the auto lot told her to make sure to loosen all of the lug nuts when he was actually saying that her payments would be due on the fifteenth starting in June.

It could happen.

But, I really don’t think so.

She’s a kook looking for a free meal.
Which brings us back to the finger in the chili - it’s been announced that she’s dropping the suit. Yes, the police investigation, which has included a search of her house and DNA testing, not to mention the publicity, has proven to be more than she can bear. This is according to her currently unfired Attorney, Jeff Janoff.

One more cryptic detail: A woman in Nevada lost her finger in a leopard attack recently. The lawyer wouldn’t comment.