Finger Food

Trilby • Mar 27, 2005 2:25 pm
Does anyone else think that it is totally possible for the finger tip (1 and 1/2 inches long with manicured nail attached, maybe an index) found in the woman's bowl of Wendy's chili could actually be from a murdered person? I read where Wendy's checked with all of it's suppliers and NOBODY in any of these places has lost, or reported to have lost, a finger. Kinda makes me want to do a lot of cooking at home.
wolf • Mar 27, 2005 3:07 pm
I knew there was a reason I didn't eat Wendy's Chili.

I wonder if they can determine whether it was cooked in the chili or added later ...

I vaguely remember hearing that most cases of food tampering turn out to be faked to force a large cash settlement on the part of the food vendor ... could the woman have added the finger herself?
Carnivean • Mar 27, 2005 4:22 pm
Wolf: yeah, they can determine if the finger was cooked in the chili or added later. Labs have also done things like run tests on Pepsi mice and the like to discover if those cute, furry little soft drink additives were bottled at the plant or planted in the supermarket or whatever in legal cases involving such things.

Regarding Briana's question, I'm sure a lot of us have eaten crime victims. I have no good reason to suspect that, but making hamburgers and chilli and the like just seems like a wonderful way to dispose of a corpse.

Okay. Off to Wendy's, and then the video store. I wonder if they have Soylent Green?
wolf • Mar 27, 2005 5:29 pm
Carnivean wrote:
Okay. Off to Wendy's, and then the video store. I wonder if they have Soylent Green?


That's part of my collection, although I do have to replace it on DVD ... I'm trying to decide if I go with the obvious choice for Easter viewing (The Passion of the Christ) or if I take a different approach.

I don't have it and didn't like it when I saw it in a theater, but I would tend to select things like Fatal Attraction. Because of the Bunny.

This thread makes me think of Fargo, though.

I try to avoid dining in city restaurants managed by people with bent noses whose names end in vowels, so I probably cut down on that somewhat.

I wonder about the composition of Asian dishes sometimes, though.
lookout123 • Mar 28, 2005 12:02 am
finger in the chili??? guess we know what they did with dear ol' Dave, now don't we?
OnyxCougar • Mar 28, 2005 2:22 pm
So is this woman suing for millions of dollars?
Trilby • Mar 29, 2005 4:43 pm
OnyxCougar wrote:
So is this woman suing for millions of dollars?

But of course! Isn't that why American's are so great? She lawyered up right away...and still no news on owner of the finger...dang.
vsp • Mar 29, 2005 4:50 pm
For what it's worth, if I got a bowl of chili from a restaurant and it had a HUMAN FINGER in it, damn right I'd lawyer up. That's years of therapy waiting to happen right there.
Pie • Mar 29, 2005 5:35 pm
I'd lawyer it up, too. Not because of the "mental pain and anguish" but rather understandable, justifiable plain-n-simple outrage. Bitch-slap them into the next century. That's all corporations understand - $$. :mad2:
- Pie
lookout123 • Mar 29, 2005 5:43 pm
i'd have to sue - i mean, you don't put fingers in your mouth... you never know where they have been.
Trilby • Mar 29, 2005 5:46 pm
Yeah, it's totally fine by me that she sue. At least there really IS some merit to 'mental anguish' here. If I were her, though, my very first move would not be to lawyer up but to get myself to a fabulous doctor and have blood work done. Pronto.
mrnoodle • Mar 29, 2005 6:17 pm
I wouldn't eat Wendy's chili with or without fingers. I worked there in high school, here's how we made it:

The burgers are fresh, normally. They're staged on the grill according to doneness. After about 6 flips or so, they become dried out and nasty and go in a bucket under the grill. Five gallons of congealed grease and burnt meat later, the bucket is dumped on a cutting board in back, where we chopped up the patties with a spatula, then put the result in yet another bucket (not the same one, but still nasty and greasy). The package of chili seasoning is dumped into this. Only one ingredient left: water.

Water from the mop closet, because that tap is near the floor and 5 gallons of meat is heavy. The tap has a length of garden hose attached to it that has become black with age, crud from the mop bucket and, well, chili meat.

If they served that shit on Fear Factor, someone else would get the $50k.
404Error • Mar 29, 2005 8:04 pm
Ooookay...glad I only had hot dogs for dinner. They couldn't be as bad as all that, right? :greenface
Carnivean • Mar 29, 2005 9:02 pm
Brianna wrote:
Yeah, it's totally fine by me that she sue. At least there really IS some merit to 'mental anguish' here. If I were her, though, my very first move would not be to lawyer up but to get myself to a fabulous doctor and have blood work done. Pronto.


I imagine the chilli was pretty safe to eat if it had all been cooked. It's just the gross-out factor that gets me. I agree that the Wendy's customer deserves to win a lawsuit.

Thank goodness the only fastfood joint I eat at is KFC, where the chicken is, well, you know . . .
AnthonyFrankChirico • Mar 29, 2005 9:49 pm
Brianna wrote:
Does anyone else think that it is totally possible for the finger tip (1 and 1/2 inches long with manicured nail attached, maybe an index) found in the woman's bowl of Wendy's chili could actually be from a murdered person? I read where Wendy's checked with all of it's suppliers and NOBODY in any of these places has lost, or reported to have lost, a finger. Kinda makes me want to do a lot of cooking at home.

AS TOLD by RAY MANDO, my National Security Advisor, to Anthony Chirico,"only Fools don't return phonecalls and Fools don't pay their taxes"
mrnoodle • Mar 30, 2005 11:03 am
hey, it looks like you got lost. I think you meant to go here
Trilby • Apr 9, 2005 3:05 pm
Apparently, our girl has sued numerous people in the past, including another fast food chain. The plot thickens! Somebody's gonna get fingered!
Elspode • Apr 9, 2005 3:17 pm
Sounds like her lawsuit may get a "chili" reception.
cowhead • Apr 10, 2005 4:13 am
gurk.. not to side step some of this, but having worked in food service for 16 years.. there are alot of things you don't want to know...

the thing that bothers me is there are two types of people who go into this line of work... the overactive underachievers (who mostly have some other avenue that they work at usually a creative path.. music,film etc) and those who can't get a job doing anything else... creeps, psychopaths.. the terminally mentally ill.. oh! I can tell you stories.. a finger in the chilli sand me this message 'uh, one of thier plant has been hiring illegal immigrants, one of them lost a finger, they covered the cost of the finger, and paid them a little more not to say anything about it...(oh damn the book is escaping me.. the jungle? about 1920's meat packing?.. 'bout the same thing.. trust me.. I'm in Kansas... it's nasty business)... anyway.. don't eat fast food. period 8 times out of 10 you will be served something 'other' than what you ordered.. and by other. well..... use your imagination
Tonchi • Apr 10, 2005 7:16 pm
The latest is that this lady has a recently-deceased AUNT, and authorities are pursuing that angle. I suspect that the aunt was conveniently cremated though. If the finger had been cooked in the chili there is probably not going to be much of a fingerprint left, but they did get one.

As for they "mystery meat" problem, the movie that comes to my mind immediately is Fried Green Tomatoes, but of course I would not have been dining in one of those picturesque Mafia-decor spaghetti parlors anyway whereas good ol' Suthern barbeque is a possibliity.
wolf • Apr 10, 2005 9:19 pm
Wasn't that a plot point of Motel Hell, also??

They can do genetic testing of the digit, and if they have samples to test against (known parent or sibling) they could determine likelihood that it came from the auntie.
melidasaur • Apr 11, 2005 10:52 am
People like this woman are the biggest reason why we need tort reform. Finger aside for a moment, people are too eager to "lawyer up" when half the time, the event that occurred is really THEIR FAULT!
mrnoodle • Apr 11, 2005 11:01 am
her story about how the police broke into her house and roughed up her daughter (complete with shiny new arm sling) borders on the absurd as well. If this woman took her dead aunt's finger to use in a fast-food lawsuit, she should get more than a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure how many laws she would have broken, but it's bound to be several.
breakingnews • Apr 22, 2005 9:36 am
So, they arrested the woman. Could be just another great American sham to screw someone out of money in court. Sadly, despite lost sales and a lot of money spent investigating the incident, Wendy's will probably get nothing from the ordeal, since she likely doesn't have much money.


LAS VEGAS (AP) _ The woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili last month has been arrested, the latest twist in a bizarre case about how the 1 1/2-inch finger tip ended up in a bowl of fast food.
Queen of the Ryche • Apr 22, 2005 11:29 am
breakingnews wrote:
So, they arrested the woman. Could be just another great American sham to screw someone out of money in court. Sadly, despite lost sales and a lot of money spent investigating the incident, Wendy's will probably get nothing from the ordeal, since she likely doesn't have much money.

And this is AFTER she dropped her case, because it was just "too stressful" (poor dear) - But the papers aren't saying what they arrested her for - Stealing a finger off a dead body? Temporarily ruining Wendys' business? Fraud? Making me never want to eat chili ever again?
Trilby • Apr 22, 2005 11:31 am
I think they arrested her for larceny. I think her gig is up.
breakingnews • Apr 22, 2005 11:58 am
She was arrested on a warrant alleging grand larceny and attempted grand larceny, Las Vegas Police Sgt. Chris Jones said.


Hm.
Queen of the Ryche • Apr 22, 2005 12:39 pm
Can they add "Wasting Taxpayers Valuable Tax Dollars on the Investigation"? I think that's a felony........anyway it would be if I were Queen.
lookout123 • Apr 22, 2005 12:46 pm
maybe we could use her for a new reality game show. think fear factor, lots of chili related challenges... the winner gets to put 2 in the back of her head, and the losers have to eat chili made with - you guessed it! the lieing litigous bitch!
Queen of the Ryche • Apr 22, 2005 1:28 pm
where do I audition?
wolf • May 3, 2005 1:34 am
Confirmed Finger in Custard (Wilmington, North Carolina)

Eaaauw. :vomit:

Seeing "Custard" I thought that this would be something that wouldn't impact anything I ate on a regular basis ... but of course, by "Custard" they mean "Soft Serve Ice Cream."
Tonchi • May 3, 2005 3:22 am
It's absolutely unbelievable that somebody would be so stupid as to pull this same trick again right after they arrested the last perpetrator. Any fingers that get left lying around seem to end up in restaurants, so the hospitals better start doing better inventory in the ERs before a real epidemic of copycats get started :dead:
wolf • May 3, 2005 11:20 am
As of this time, this is a confirmed finger.
breakingnews • May 10, 2005 2:12 pm
So this is the consolation prize for thinking the whole chili-finger incident was bogus and eating at Wendy's anyway. Anyone up for a Frosty party?

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/10/news/midcaps/wendys_frosty/index.htm?cnn=yes


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wendy's restaurants are giving away free Frostys frozen desserts this weekend as a thank you to customers who supported the burger chain following an embarrassing incident in California where a women allegedly planted a severed finger in a bowl of chili.

"Our customers stood by us while we defended our good name and protected our employees' livelihoods, so now we're showing our appreciation with free Frostys," Tom Mueller, Wendy's chief executive, said in a press release. "We're moving on."

The incident has hurt Wendy's (Research) business, particularly on the West Coast, with the company estimating same store sales took a 2 to 2.5 percent hit in the most recent quarter.

Anna Ayala of Las Vegas caused a media sensation in March with her claim of the finger in her food at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's. Police have since charged Ayala with attempted grand theft.

The company estimates it will give away 14 million Junior Frostys during the event, which runs nationwide from Friday through Sunday. No other purchase is required.