Some long-time readers of my old blog Lone Star Concerto might remember the time I bought the cake at Walmart in Odessa, Texas.
Then again, maybe you won't.
It was a chocolate cake, on sale. The cake was tightly sealed in a plastic container, and there was a giant "Reduced Price" label on top which obscured half the cake.
When I got home and opened the container, the part of the cake that was hidden by the label had a huge piece missing. It looked like somebody had carelessly hacked it out!
I didn't bother to return it to Walmart, because I didn't think anyone would believe me. Who the hell ever bought a cake with a gigantic piece missing? I threw the whole thing in the trash.
A few weeks ago, here in Tennessee, I bought a few "snack cake" pies. I actually don't like them very much because they're too sweet and kinda soggy, but they're only 50 cents each.
There's no way in hell I was going to drive a zillion miles back to town to return a 50 cent pie - - so, I tossed it in the garbage.
Most of my classic food horror stories happened when I lived in California.
I remember when I was about fifteen years old and my Mom bought some special ice cream that was made for the holiday season. It was French vanilla and had red and green cherries in it.
As I was happily devouring a bowl of the ice cream, I felt something hard and strange in my mouth. I pulled it out and.....you'll never believe this......it was a great big fingernail!!!
I wouldn't even want to venture a guess as to how the heck it got in there, but I didn't eat ice cream again for over a year.
I still have occasional red and green cherry nightmares - - and anything to do with fingernails makes me lose my appetite.
You wanna hear about the burrito? I ordered a Burrito Supreme from a take-out Mexican restaurant. Took one bite and found a hair. Not just any hair.
It was an extremely long, thick industrial-sized black hair that was embedded through the entire length of the giant bean, cheese, and beef burrito.
How about the Spanish fly?
I bought a jar of salad olives imported from Spain. Ate almost all the olives. When I looked in the bottom of the jar, I discovered a huge dead fly!
Another take-out food story.
My parents and I went to the grand opening of a Carl's Jr. - which I think was in San Bernadino. We ordered a bunch of hamburgers, fries, and other things. When we opened the bags of food, everything was covered with little red bugs - hundreds of them - running around everywhere.
That was the very last time we ever went to Carl's Jr.
Besides, their food is always crappy even without the bugs.
I remember the time we went to a fancy restaurant in Newport Beach. My mother ordered a big salad.
I jokingly told her to check it carefully to make sure nothing strange was in it. She dug down to the bottom and found a big, juicy worm!
The piece de resistance
I saved the best for last. At least it's the one that shook me up the most.
I was working as a security officer and my shift ended at midnight. When I got home, I was tired but decided to make a snack.
The easiest thing to make was a cup of Ramen Noodle Soup. The kitchen was dimly lighted with only a nightlight. I quickly heated the water, made the soup, and got out a big (old) box of crackers from the cupboard.
In semi-darkness I opened the cracker box and started stuffing loads of crackers into the soup. Something didn't taste quite right, but I was hungry and kept eating. And eating.
When the soup was nearly finished and most of the crackers were gone, I finally got up and turned on a bright kitchen light.
I looked at the remaining crackers......and discovered that they were rotten and FILLED with LIVE WHITE WORMS!!!!
I didn't faint and I didn't puke.
But I refused to eat crackers again for well over ten years. No lie.
And to this day, I always CAREFULLY inspect crackers before eating them.
Bon Appetit!
