Anna Ayala Fingers Herself

Authorities may have a difficult time convicting Anna Ayala of an illegal hoax if they cannot identify the secret ingredient in her Wendy's chili.

One critical piece of evidence that has NOT been made public is degree of doneness. I figure that Wendy's chili probably spends a couple of hours in an industrial-sized crockpot at the Secret Wendy's Chili Factory, then simmers away in one steam tray or another for several more hours before arriving on our table with that deep, slow-cooked chili flavor.

If an industrial accident at the Secret Wendy's Chili Factory is to blame, that finger would have been thoroughly stewed to the point of "fall-off-the-bone" tenderness. If this is the case, prosecutors will be left to wonder why a Wendy's employee would accidentally chop off their finger, drop it in a vat of chili, then conceal the incident. I have never chopped off one of my fingers, but I am going to bet it smarts, and probably produces a fair amount of blood. I have heard of high-end restaurant chefs powering though a third seating with 2nd degree fryolator burns on their hands, but I doubt that kind of commitment is common among Wendy's employees. Nobody gives up a finger for $5.25 an hour.

If we are dealing with a less toothsome, parboiled finger, it would have been added to the chili closer to service. It could be that this particular Wendy's restaurant was employing a disenfranchised teenager named Beavis whose best friend Butthead had a job emptying trash cans at the ER. Not altogether implausible.

An uncooked finger would have to have been added to the chili just before serving, which would suggest a directed attack - in other words, someone meant to give Anna Ayala the finger.

Yeah - maybe someone like Anna Ayala.

Which would make this the most bone-headed food contamination scam ever conceived since the famous mouse-in-a-beer-bottle in Bob and Doug Mackenzie's Strange Brew. A rock, or a cockroach, a cigarrette butt, maybe a shard of glass - anything else would be more plausible and could have easily scared the company's lawyers into a quiet cash settlement. But she had this finger...

"I done found me a finger! We gotta think of somthin' cool to DO with it!"

Read the article at wired.com