Last week I was able to break away from the hustle bustle of my busy high-powered marketing job long enough to run out for a quick lunch at the sandwich shop down the street. I had about ten projects due by the end of the week, so I knew I would only have a few minutes to eat. I ordered my usual sandwich – buffalo chicken with bleu cheese spread – and sat down at a table to gobble it up.
With each bite, I kept glancing down at my watch to make sure I was back in time for my 12:30pm high-powered marketing meeting. All of the sudden, I bit down into something unexpected. To my keenly sensitive palate, it felt like neither bread nor buffalo chicken nor bleu cheese spread. I slowly pulled the sandwich away from my mouth, and had to choke back a blood-curdling scream when I realized that I had just bitten into a bleu cheese covered human index finger.
Fighting the urge to retch, I carefully wiped the bleu cheese off the finger, and soon discovered that the digit was my own, still firmly attached to my hand. I could clearly see the irregular teeth marks just below my first knuckle, leaving a vaguely pink line that throbbed with pain. Realizing that this atrocity committed against my being was far more important than any high-powered marketing meeting, I sought solace in the only place I could think of: my friend Seamus’ law firm, which is fortunately only a few blocks away from my office.
Seamus was able to get me an appointment with one of their top attorneys who handles restaurant chain lawsuits, and although his specialty is rat droppings, the attorney was willing to see me immediately.
Handing me a tissue, he leaned in and said, “Ms. Amadeo, I’m so sorry for your trauma. You must still be in shock. You did the right thing by coming here. But tell me, were you able to retrieve the finger from the sandwich?”
“Well, yes. I have it right here,” I explained, pointing my left index finger at my right one. “You can just make out some of the bite marks here.”
He looked a bit puzzled, and asked, “Wait? Do I understand this correctly? You bit into your own finger?”
I held my face in my hands and just nodded, sobbing softly. It was all still too fresh.
My attorney cleared his throat and said, “This is highly unorthodox, I’m afraid. When I agreed to see you, I assumed that you had bitten into a severed finger. The severed finger market is really what our firm is looking to get into. I… I just don’t know that-“
I wiped away the tears with my slightly red finger, and said, “Is my horror and disgust any less real than if the finger had belonged to a stranger? Am I not still a victim here? If I bite me, do I not bleed?”
“Yes, yes. I’m certain that this was a traumatic experience for you, but I just don’t see that you have a case. In fact, I’m not sure who the case would be against, if I were to file one.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I said, “Why, the sandwich shop, of course! That sandwich had at least twice the normal amount of delicious bleu cheese spread on it, causing it to drip all over my hands, thereby making my own finger look exactly like a tasty piece of buffalo chicken. If that isn’t gross negligence, then I don’t know what is, sir!”
He leaned back and scratched his cheek a bit, then probed, “Interesting. Twice the normal amount, you say? Was there anything else that caused you to mistake your finger for chicken? Perhaps an extra tomato or some lettuce?”
As emotionally painful as it was for me, I tried hard to think back to the time of the incident, approximately twenty minutes earlier. “No, lettuce doesn’t come with that sandwich. And I don’t remember if there were any tomatoes – some of the details are foggy. Everything happened so fast – I mean, I kept looking at my watch because I had to get back to the office. I don’t know, there might have been a tomato, but I can’t be-“
He stopped me and said, “Wait a minute. Go back. Did you say you were rushing because of a meeting?”
“Why, yes. I only had a few minutes to eat because of a high-powered marketing meeting that was at 12:30pm.”
“So would you say that the stress of this upcoming meeting, inconsiderately scheduled during the lunch hour, coupled with the excessive bleu cheese dressing, both caused you to bite into the finger?”
“Well… yes. Yes, I guess that’s true.”
“And this company of yours – how big is it?”
“I work for Valhalla, Inc. It’s an international company – we have over 18,000 employees worldwide.”
My attorney quickly picked up his phone and dialed his assistant. “Gene, get Richard on the phone immediately. Code Deep Pockets. Repeat, Code Deep Pockets.”
Tomorrow I have to go in to have plaster casts made of my teeth and finger so that the forensic experts can reconstruct the crime scene. My new team of attorneys has advised me to stay out of that sandwich shop until after the trial date is set. Until then, I’m just sitting tight, trying to shake the memory of the day I discovered a human index finger in my sandwich.

Filed under: General on May 9th, 2005