Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Here in North Kakalacky, we don't have to fake it.
WILMINGTON, NC (AP) -- A man who ordered a pint of frozen chocolate custard in a dessert shop got a nasty surprise inside -- a piece of severed finger lost by an employee in an accident. Unlike a recent incident at a Wendy's restaurant in California, no questions of truth have been raised about the finger served up to go at Kohl's Frozen Custard and found later at home by Clarence Stowers. Officials from the state departments of agriculture and labor went to the shop Monday, and the owner confirmed one of his employees lost part of a finger in an accident with a food-processing machine.
Unfortunately, every conceivable pun for this story was already used with that weak California pseudofingereating incident, leaving none for the genuine article just a few short weeks later. Thanks, poseurs. So instead, we'll just go straight to the horse's mouth.
"I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream ... to make it a treat. So I said, 'OK, well, I'll just put it in my mouth and get the ice cream off of it and see what it is.'" Stowers said he spit the object out, but still couldn't identify it. So he went to his kitchen, rinsed it off with water -- and "just started screaming." [...]
Shop owner Craig Thomas said the employee who lost the finger had dropped a bucket while working with a machine that dispenses the custard. He tried to catch the bucket when the accident occurred. Thomas told WWAY that several employees tried to help the injured worker, and that a drive-thru window attendant apparently scooped custard from the bucket into a pint before being told what had happened.
Update:This is the second finger that same custard-mixer has eaten, but only the first one to make it into a customer's mouth. The link includes a picture of the first creamy, frozen amputee, throwing a gang sign showing his missing fingertip in front of the store.
TrackBackWhile national statistics show that people do lose fingertips on the job, they rarely do so in situations where they can get into food. Mark Zak, an economist with the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, said that in 2003 the agency recorded 5,620 nonfatal fingertip amputations in private workplaces that resulted in the loss of at least one day of work. He said only 300 of those occurred at leisure and hospitality workplaces, a category that includes restaurants and ice cream parlors.
No specific statistics are available on how often amputated digits actually end up in the food supply, said Fred Blosser, a spokesman for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
It's just so nasty, I can't even think about it. North Carolina always gets in the news for the most fucked up stuff. Helms, KKK shootings, fingers in custard.
Posted by: Claudia at May 4, 2005 09:00 AMBut the upside is this: we always have Florida to make us look normal.
Posted by: apostropher at May 4, 2005 09:12 AMWhile national statistics show that people do lose fingertips on the job, they rarely do so in situations where they can get into food.
What I like about this is the implication that, hey, losing a finger is no big deal unless it ends up in someone else's food.
Posted by: bitchphd at May 4, 2005 09:36 AMIt is, after all, a consumer society. And an ownership society. You own your finger and are therefore responsible for keeping it out of the way of sharp blades. It's your responsibility, not the government's.
Posted by: Claudia at May 4, 2005 09:50 AMno big deal unless it ends up in someone else's food
Or if it happens to be your middle finger, in which case many of us would experience some difficulty communicating with other drivers.
Posted by: apostropher at May 4, 2005 09:58 AM"nonfatal fingertip amputations in private workplaces that resulted in the loss of at least one day of work"
Are there any fingertip amputations that result in the loss of less than a day of work?!
Employee: "Boss! I just lost a finger!"
Boss (turning head to glance at employee): "Well I be damned. You sure did. You can take an hour to go home and put a good band-aid on that. Oh, and maybe some peroxide, too."
Posted by: John Johnson at May 4, 2005 11:48 AMIt is, after all, a consumer society.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Posted by: mmcc at May 4, 2005 12:52 PMWhen all the other forms of emphirical methodology fail me......
'I'll just put it in my mouth and ... see what it is,'
"5,620 nonfatal fingertip amputations "
So how many fatal fingertip amputations occur in the US workplace every year?
"In 1999, the median number of days away from work for cases involving nonfatal amputations was 18 days (25 days when amputations of just the fingertip were excluded), compared with only 6 days for all injuries and illnesses combined."
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/sh20030114ar01p1.htm
If you visit the website above, refer to Table 1.
How the fuck do you suffer a nonfatal amputation
while working in the finance, insurance, &/or real estate industry? 955 reported cases between 1992 & 1999?!
You slam your goddamn finger in a filing cabinet, maybe. Hard. Or perhaps the paper cutter?
Posted by: bitchphd at May 4, 2005 06:27 PMThere is an entire site devoted to middle finger medical maladies
Posted by: Ru at May 4, 2005 11:57 PMfinger food anyone?
"It's finger lickin' good."
"The taste really lingers
when you flavour it with fingers!"
Fish fingers -or is that a sex joke?
There's something about this custard … I can't put my finger on it.
Posted by: John Johnson at May 5, 2005 06:05 AMI was hoping it wasn't but...yep! That's the same Kohl's my friend worked at while we were in HS. Lucily, when we would go hang out there to harass him no body parts found their way into our food.
Posted by: Karyn at May 5, 2005 08:24 AMAnd don't you just know that some leechy ambulance chaser is going to try to make a federal case out of this with some frivolous lawsuit.
That's the problem with our society today.
Everybody is looking to either lose a finger or eat a finger and grab onto the gravy train in the sky. Nobody strives for hard work at low pay. Nuh uh. It is all "Maybe today I can poke my eye out." It's like looking a dead horse up the ass.
Man.
Posted by: Tripp at May 5, 2005 08:40 AMLooks like this guy might have a criminal background, check out this public information report on him that I ran across..
http://forums.rcdrifter.com/about499.html
Posted by: Public Defender at May 6, 2005 12:24 PMUnfortunately, there are those in the world who are trying to find their gravy train (Stowers) at other's expense. Fact: The clown was IN THE STORE as the manager was on the phone with the hospital where the surgeon was trying to assist the guy who lost his finger. Despite pleading with Stowers to return the finger so that the physician could either reattach it or at least salvage some part of it for the young kid, Stowers refused and said that he was getting a lawyer and going to the press. Some jerk huh? My bet is that he saw the fingertip first and never "put it in his mouth" as he said. But one of the bloggers is right, there will be some low life ambulance chaser who tries to suck a fee out of a nuisance lawsuit.....
Posted by: JP at May 6, 2005 04:37 PMThat's the worst thing I can imaging happening to me at the restaurant. And what a shame for the managers!
Posted by: Air Ambulance Doc at December 1, 2005 03:10 PM