The 5 Stages of Finding a Rat in Your Salad
Okay okay, so I can't be certain it was actually a rat. But about halfway through my Yahoo! cafeteria salad today -- which, by the way, I highly recommended to everyone in the office -- I found a very suspicious, um, item that can only be described as "rat-thigh-like" in shape and color. I am thinking that it could perhaps be a very strange-looking root vegetable -- but no matter, I spit out the lettuce still in my mouth and proceeded to panic.
Unfortunately since I still don't have a digital camera I can't show you.
The weird thing about all this is that my next reaction was one of shame. After shock and disgust -- shame. As if I'd done something wrong! Asked for this rat thigh in my salad! I found it interesting, in retrospect, that my instincts told me to hide my salad and keep anyone from finding out about my field greens indiscretion. After all, who wants a rat-eating coworker for a cubemate?
This led me to think that there are at least 5 distinct emotional stages one goes through after finding an errant object in their food:
1. Shock and disgust. "How did that fingertip get into my Wendy's chili?! Gross!"
2. Embarassment. "Oh god, if anyone sees that there's a hair floating in my soup, they'll be totally grossed out and think I'm gross for eating part of the soup."
3. Loss of appetite. "I'll never eat again after finding a rat carcass in my pear-and-goat-cheese salad."
4. Anger. "I'M BRINGING THIS SALAD BOX RIGHT DOWN TO URLS AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME"
5. Acceptance.
I feel much better now.
Okay okay, so I can't be certain it was actually a rat. But about halfway through my Yahoo! cafeteria salad today -- which, by the way, I highly recommended to everyone in the office -- I found a very suspicious, um, item that can only be described as "rat-thigh-like" in shape and color. I am thinking that it could perhaps be a very strange-looking root vegetable -- but no matter, I spit out the lettuce still in my mouth and proceeded to panic.
Unfortunately since I still don't have a digital camera I can't show you.
The weird thing about all this is that my next reaction was one of shame. After shock and disgust -- shame. As if I'd done something wrong! Asked for this rat thigh in my salad! I found it interesting, in retrospect, that my instincts told me to hide my salad and keep anyone from finding out about my field greens indiscretion. After all, who wants a rat-eating coworker for a cubemate?
This led me to think that there are at least 5 distinct emotional stages one goes through after finding an errant object in their food:
1. Shock and disgust. "How did that fingertip get into my Wendy's chili?! Gross!"
2. Embarassment. "Oh god, if anyone sees that there's a hair floating in my soup, they'll be totally grossed out and think I'm gross for eating part of the soup."
3. Loss of appetite. "I'll never eat again after finding a rat carcass in my pear-and-goat-cheese salad."
4. Anger. "I'M BRINGING THIS SALAD BOX RIGHT DOWN TO URLS AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME"
5. Acceptance.
I feel much better now.
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