|
Taco Bell or Taco Hell?
Dateline: 11/25/98
Our latest probe into the nervous underbelly of American culture was prompted by this
query from a reader, dated October 29:
Hi. There is a very strange rumor going around the Youngstown, Ohio area of Taco
Bell being infested w/ cockroaches. Here's the story as I heard it:
One of my friend's cousin's friends (of course you've got the dog in there somewhere,
too) went to a local Taco Bell and ate what, I don't know. But supposedly the next day her
gums swelled up and she called her dentist. He asked her where she ate and she told him.
He told her to come in as soon as possible. She got there and there were cockroach eggs in
her gums. He then contacted the local police department and they went to the Taco Bell and
found live and dead cockroaches in the meat.
Now let me tell you that #1: That location of that Taco Bell was not closed down. #2:
There was nothing in the news or local paper about it (which you know the media loves that
kind of stuff.) #3: The location of the Taco Bell has changed from where it originally
took place to one which is being torn down to build one of those Taco Bell/KFC deals.
It seems like a hoax to me. I'm thinking that the people around here are so bored w/
their lives they have to do something to liven them up. My question to you is, is this the
only time you've heard of this, or is it going around other areas too?
Thank you for asking. A bit of research reveals that roughly the same story has been
popping up all over the U.S. since early this year.
The two earliest variants, set in Boone, North Carolina,
were reported to the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup in March:
- "Someone ate at Taco Bell, had a sore throat the next day, went to the doctor and
they discovered spider eggs in her throat."
- "Someone ate at Taco Bell, had a sore throat the next day, went to the doctor. The
doctor said 'We have to do surgery immediately.' Turns out there were roach larvae eating
her cheeks from the inside out."
Three months later in June, another version surfaced in San Jose, California.
Its author was gracious enough to supply many delightful details, including the exact
location of the restaurant and what items were consumed by the victim:
- "My friend at work told me that just last week a girl ate at the Taco Bell on
Camden/Kooser and she had 3 bean burritos. The next day she woke up and her throat was
bleeding inside. She was rushed to the hospital for four hours of surgery because her
whole body was infected with cockroach eggs. They went back to that Taco Bell and the
entire place was infected with cockroach eggs. Supposedly the acid in your stomach would
normally kill the cockroach stuff, but it got into this girl’s intestine and
spread."
Yet another
version was reported on October 20, though no location was specified. Note that in
this case the victim's gums are said to have been bleeding, not her throat. Note also that
the victim is the daughter of a friend of a co-worker.
- "Someone here at work told me the following story: The daughter of a friend is
attending college. She is working part time to help pay her tuition. Her gums begin to
bleed even when she isn't brushing her teeth so she goes to the dentist. The dentist asks
her what she has been eating. She tells him she eats at Taco Bell frequently. At this
point the Dentist tells her that her gums have a 'cockroach-egg' infestation and that is
why they are bleeding. The dentist also tells her it is from eating at Taco Bell."
In mid-November I was forwarded a copy of an email alert in which our burgeoning
folktale gets the full dramatic treatment. Please note that the present text implies that
the incident occurred in San Francisco, but another version currently circulating
specifies no particular locale.
| THIS IS GROSS...BE WARNED I received this from a friend of mine that works for
some attorneys in San Francisco, this is real
This girl was really in a hurry one day so she just stopped off at a Taco Bell and got
a Chicken soft taco and ate it on the way home. Well, that night she noticed her jaw was
kind of tight and swollen. The next day it was a little worse so she went to her doctor.
He said she was just have an allergic reaction to something and gave her some cream to rub
on her jaw to help.
After a couple of does the swelling had just gotten worse and she could hardly move her
jaw. She went back to her doctor to see what was wrong. Her doctor had no idea so he
started to run some test. They scrubbed out the inside of her mouth to get tissue samples
and they also took some saliva samples. Well, they found out what was wrong.
Apparently her chicken soft taco had a pregnant roach in it that she ate!! The eggs
then somehow got into her saliva glands and she was incubating them in her mouth. They had
to remove a couple a layers of her inner mouth to get all the eggs out. If they hadn't
figured out what was going on the eggs would have hatched inside the lining of her
mouth!!!!!!!
She's suing Taco Bell! Of course. |
How credible is the story? Not very. It presupposes the likelihood that:
1) a pregnant roach landed in a batch of chicken meat and remained there
undetected;
2) the roach – or, at any rate, her egg capsule (or "ootheca")
– survived the 140-degree (F.) heat of the steam table (theoretically, that's the
minimum temperature at which hot food is supposed to be held);
3) the crunchy body of the roach was not detected and spat out while the
customer was chewing;
4) the small, hard egg capsule was not swallowed intact, but ruptured during
mastication, spilling out its contents in the customer's mouth;
5) the eggs "somehow got into her saliva glands" (?) instead of
being swallowed;
6) the eggs survived exposure to the digestive enzymes in saliva;
7) the customer happened to be one of those fewer than 1 in 4 people who are
allergic to cockroaches, which would account for the irritation and internal bleeding.
Believe it if you want, but in addition to the fact that precisely the same incident is
alleged to have occurred in all the various places mentioned (and probably others), the
narrative itself doesn't stand up well under scrutiny.
This relatively new urban legend follows the form of other well-known food
contamination tales, most notably " The Kentucky-Fried Rat,"
in which a "funny-tasting piece of chicken" from a KFC restaurant turns out to
be a deep-fried rodent. Such legends play, of course, on the reputed uncleanliness and low
quality standards of fast food restaurants everywhere.
Which reminds me. Have you heard the one about the guy who was eating a chicken
sandwich at a certain fast food restaurant in Santa Fe and bit into a pus-filled abscess?
Or maybe it was in Toronto. Anyway, true story...
Further reading:
| 
