4 Fast Food Horror Stories That Curled Our Spines Faster Than You Can Say ‘Burger King Fries From A Trash Can’
The only thing America loves more than fast food is a story about how someone found a human finger in their fast food. This one’s for the patriots.
Fast-food horror stories make up a significant portion of contemporary urban mythos. Everyone knows about the woman who was scalded by a spilled cup of McDonald’s coffee and successfully sued the company, and the 98 percent of people who know how badly 79-year-old Stella May Liebeck was burned by the supposedly 190-degree cup of joe love correcting the 2 percent that don’t when the latter uses the case as an example of legal frivolity.
However, unlike the late Ms. Liebeck’s experience, many of the popular scary stories surrounding fast food are fabricated — the famous “Chili Finger Lady” who claimed to have bitten into a partially cooked human finger found in a cup of Wendy’s chili pled guilty to grand larceny after it was found that she faked the whole incident in an attempt to score a payout from the girl with the red pigtails.
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Thus, the following stories should, along with many of the food items in question, be taken with a grain of salt. In any event, here are the four freakiest fast food horror stories to ruin your next drive-thru order…
A Kentucky Woman Claimed to Find Part of a Hypodermic Needle in a McDonald’s Hamburger
In 2017, Erin Spellman of Lexington-Fayette County in Kentucky penned a Facebook post claiming that her stepmom had found part of a needle in her hamburger after ordering at a local McDonald’s. The story quickly attracted national attention as well as an inspection from the county health department, which found no evidence of contamination or unsafe food preparation practices on the part of the restaurant’s staff. However, no investigation was ever made into farms that produce the beef in McDonald’s patties and whether there’s any evidence of junkie cows.
A Burger King in Delaware Closed Down After a Viral Video Showed Rats Running Around in Their Bun Bags
“Don’t go to Burger King on (Route) 202,” Delaware’s Shantel Johnson captioned a Facebook video in which she filmed a family of rats scurrying around inside a bag of hamburger buns. Almost immediately, Delaware Health and Social Services officials launched an investigation and promptly shut down the offending restaurant, citing “gross unsanitary conditions.”
“Pallets that rolls were on had mouse droppings. Mouse droppings were observed on the floor near the ice machine, water heater, under storage, near syrup soda boxes and behind fryers,” the report read, with officials calling the conditions behind the counter an “imminent health hazard.” However, nowhere in the report is it noted if anyone bothered to ask if the rats were the ones cooking the food — Ratatouille must not be big in Delaware.
A Woman in Upstate New York Claimed She Found a Door Knob in Her Taco Bell Nachos
I can’t think of a situation where the words, “Don’t worry, it’s just a nacho cheese handle” would ever make anyone feel at ease, but that’s about all the reassurance Hudson Valley’s Eve Saint offered as a follow-up after her Facebook post showing a mysterious knob smothered in “cheese” and chips blew up in 2019. After initially calling the alien object a door knob, Saint used her power of deduction (and Google) to determine that the rounded, threaded chunk of plastic may have come off of the top of one of Taco Bell’s nacho cheese dispenser.
After escalating her complaint, Saint claimed that the company offered her an apology as well as a coupon for a free order of nachos — no word if the next order had the rest of the dispenser in it.
A KFC in China Served Someone Deep-Fried Toilet Paper
Last year, a woman in Anji, China opened up an order served by her local KFC to find that her meal contained an extra piece — or ply. The customer even claimed that she bit into the oily, crispy sheet of toilet tissue without knowing what was inside. The story quickly went viral on the Chinese social media site Weibo, and after the customer filed an official complaint, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce confirmed her story and conducted an investigation into the location.
As someone who admittedly dislikes KFC and can’t see the appeal, I’m astounded that she was able to differentiate between deep-fried toilet paper and “The Colonel’s” usual fare.