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Monday, November 27, 2006

The Food Con

Why is it that there is always someone out there sneaking mice, cockroaches, worms, and (in at least one case) a finger into restaurant food? Pssst! You morons! It's time to give it up. They're on to you!

Those cons worked well in the 80s and into the 90s, but now the restaurants are fighting back! People are getting slapped with defamation suits, they're going to jail or getting fined for false testimony. Hellooo? If you want to pull a fast one, try something else.

The latest one that I've heard of is detailed here in the St. Pete Times today. It's about a woman named Muriel who supposedly ate a McDonalds hamburger covered in little green worms. Then she got sick, ended up on the hospital with an EColi infection, and is suing McDonalds.

Her testimony is shaky at best. She claims she wolfed part of it quickly, then saw the worms, had her hubby take a picture (he could only produce a picture with one worm). Then she fell ill, went to the hospital, and tried to get the doctors to agree that it was the burger that got her. They wouldn't. And an expert says the worm is most likely to be a butterfly caterpillar and wouldn't harm her if she ate it. (Unless, of course, the worm/caterpillar was carrying EColi, I should add. Maybe that will be her answer).

In my humble opinion, here's what really happened: Since Muriel has quite a record for getting busted for shoplifting in her past, we can assume she's good at the con game. We all know that there's no way that she got caught the only times that she did it. The paper points out that there are no recent records of her shoplifting, but we all know that this only means she got better at it.

One day Muriel started feeling very ill. She told her hubby to run out and grab an order from a nearby fast food restaurant so that she could blame it on the food and get some money out of it. Muriel assumed (wrongly, it appears) that the restaurant would like to pay her major hush money just to make a nuisance suit go away.

Muriel was wrong. She would have been much smarter to keep a little of the burger, smear a very miniscule amount of her stool on it, and when the tests on the burger came back, it would've shown the same EColi strain as what she was producing. Poor Muriel. She had no idea that it was EColi so she had to spin a much more elaborate story than what was needed.

As my mother used to say "Oh what a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." For Muriel, she might say "She who claims she's sick due to worms, will be grilled by the paper and made to squirm."

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I am back at blogging and making my way down my list and knew upon reaching here you would not disappoint me!

These kinds of stories really make me laugh. Loved the one on the news last week of the lady who claimed her cat gave birth to 3 dogs! That one was hysterical!

As you know I do not like people who tell stories and all this lady planned to do was hurt others. I hope she gets sued instead!

Jenn said...

I guess that's one way to get a Christmas bonus? Perhaps a DUMB way..haha.

Deb said...

Sad that people feel the need to increase their wealth by doing this. I can't imagine that they feel good afterwards...or do they? I'll never forget, one woman in NY ate at Taco Bell, and went straight to the hospital, because her tongue was infected. When they operated and found out what it was- (MAGGOTS infested her entire tongue) they went back to the same chain and found.......


that Taco bell did have bad meat.


So who are we to believe? But when we see evidence that these people or KIDS who are cooking at these places are careless, it makes it hard to swallow when you're hungry and have a taste for fast food.

Con artists are everywhere...they even call us 6pm at night while eating dinner to try and sell us something, or worst off, sell a little old lady something tha she can't afford.

Sad world! But a scary one!

The Lazy Iguana said...

Well, maybe McDonalds deserves to be sued into never never land. Lets see here:

1. The products they sell are LOADED in salt, saturated fats, trans-fats, sugar, and who knows what else.

2. They market this toxic swill as "food". If there were any truth in labeling, the FDA would require a big sticker on all McDonalds products that says "TOXIC". I would also accept "SLOW DEATH" or "5 MORE POUNDS ON YOUR ASS".

3. Why can't I just open a place that sells radioactive waste byproducts, package it as "food", and call the place "The place former KGB agents investigating the death of Russian Journalists eat at". Inside I could put up a sign that says "Try our special Thallium Sauce!"

At least that would be honest. I have little if any sympathy for the clown.

But I still eat there. Sometimes. When I want food, but am too lazy to get my ass out of the car to get it. Go figure.

Whistle Britches said...

My mom used to say the very same thing to me...One time after I told her I went out with my friends girlfriend. She guilted me into never doing that again...

Ellen said...

The stories I could tell you would make you toes curl... as I have been a victim of people trying to make a quick buck off of trying to get free food.

We once had a person who called us to tell us that he had to be rushed to the hospital for food poisoning after eating turkey we served at his place of work. When I asked him to fax me the bill from the hospital, it was dated 4 months prior to our catering the event at his workplace. Like I wasn't going to catch that????

I could go on and on.... but needless to say, we live in a country that has a favorite past-time of suing... so it's to be expected that people will take advantage of that fact.

Sad, sad, sad....

Old Horsetail Snake said...

She probably first thought of falling off a ladder, but that hurts too much.

Dave said...

Saur,

I'm seriously thinking about starting a blog where I write a new poem every day. I'm thinking about calling it "It's all Poems."

Anonymous said...

I give Wendys points for fighting the womean with a finger in her Chili too. This stuff has to stop

I had a BF in the 70's that worked for Campbells Soup. He used to routinely dispose of "spoils" at the chains. These were cans that were dented, expired or other wise unsellable. After writing the store credit, he would punch the can, throw it in a dumpster and spray it with blue marking ink. Some one filed suit on Campbells claiming to have dumpster dived and consumed spoiled product covered with marking ink. After 2 years in court, the case was tossed out.

Open access to our courts certainly make them subject to abuse.

I am not sure how I would change it though

Meow (aka Connie) said...

People are always out for what they can get, and it is such a shame, as it is people like that who are the reason behind insurance premiums being so high.
Can't believe you thought of putting some faeces on the burger ... eeewwwww !! (But I know what you were getting at !)
Have a great week.
Take care, Meow