No one likes icy fingers…especially if it winds up in the custard you’re eating.
Yes: there is a another case of a finger showing up in food but this time — unlike the (in)famous case of the finger found in the chili at Wendy’s that was part of an apparent scam leading to the arrest of the supposedly shocked customer — no one doubts its for real.
It’s getting so when you go into a restuarant they’re going to start to give fingernail clippers with each meal (or desert). To wit, according to the WKYC website:
WILMINGTON, North Carolina — The owner of a North Carolina store is explaining how a piece of a severed finger wound up in customer’s chocolate custard.
The customer, Clarence Flowers, says he put the object in his mouth thinking it was candy and ate the custard that was on it.
He tells Wilmington’s WWAY TV that he didn’t realize it was part of a finger until he rinsed it in water.
The owner says the employee who lost the finger had been working with the machine that dispenses custard when he was injured. Several employees are said to have helped the injured worker. But a drive-thru window worker unaware of the accident scooped a pint of custard from the bucket the injured worker had been handling.
The store is now closed for sanitation repairs. What they need is some good PR SPIN, so here are a few suggestions:
- “When our customers buy from us, we love to give them a few pointers!”
- “Custard with a prize inside!”
- “Try other brands, you’ll scratch them — try ours, it scratches you!”
- “You want custard? We have it nailed!”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.