Date: Aug 24 2001
Subject: Olive Garden
A friend of my wife went to the Olive Garden with her church group about two weeks ago and ordered alfredo. The meal came out cold and she had the meal sent back. It came back out cold again, she asked them to heat it up again. By the time she got it warm, everyone else was done eating, so she told the waiter to just box the meal and she would take it home. She heated the meal up and ate part of it. Over the next three days she had sores break out in her mouth and on her tongue. The DR told her that she had Herpes. After she convinced the DR that there was no way that she could have gotten them there he eventually had her run down her last five days and he found out about the food. She brought the food in and it was tested. There was semen on the food. Currently her attorney is working with authorities as well as preparing a law suit, but there is suppose to be something coming out very soon about it.
If you go to eat there you might ask to have your semen on the side.
TRUE STORY.
Why Olive Garden?
I should point out that while Olive Garden has become the main lightning rod for instances of the semen-contaminated food legend in recent years, this hasn't always been the case and shouldn't be taken as a sign that the chain is guilty of anything more insidious than being extremely popular and well known throughout the country. Among the other specimens of the tale in my email archive are variants set in pizzerias, hamburger joints, Mexican restaurants, and Chinese restaurants. Olive Garden has been singled out due to a phenomenon folklorists call the "Goliath Effect" -- a fancy way of saying that over time, disparaging rumors tend to become focused on the largest and best known businesses in their market sector, in essence because the bigger the company (or the bigger we perceive it to be), the more we are inclined to distrust it.
Let's face it, most of us live busy lives and are dining out more than ever before, which means we're putting our health in the hands of strangers more than ever before. And though we may not speak of it much, we have serious qualms about this -- qualms which find expression in urban legends about horrible things being done to our food. The stories are usually false, thank goodness, but our misgivings are all too real.
Subject: Olive Garden
A friend of my wife went to the Olive Garden with her church group about two weeks ago and ordered alfredo. The meal came out cold and she had the meal sent back. It came back out cold again, she asked them to heat it up again. By the time she got it warm, everyone else was done eating, so she told the waiter to just box the meal and she would take it home. She heated the meal up and ate part of it. Over the next three days she had sores break out in her mouth and on her tongue. The DR told her that she had Herpes. After she convinced the DR that there was no way that she could have gotten them there he eventually had her run down her last five days and he found out about the food. She brought the food in and it was tested. There was semen on the food. Currently her attorney is working with authorities as well as preparing a law suit, but there is suppose to be something coming out very soon about it.
If you go to eat there you might ask to have your semen on the side.
TRUE STORY.
Why Olive Garden?
I should point out that while Olive Garden has become the main lightning rod for instances of the semen-contaminated food legend in recent years, this hasn't always been the case and shouldn't be taken as a sign that the chain is guilty of anything more insidious than being extremely popular and well known throughout the country. Among the other specimens of the tale in my email archive are variants set in pizzerias, hamburger joints, Mexican restaurants, and Chinese restaurants. Olive Garden has been singled out due to a phenomenon folklorists call the "Goliath Effect" -- a fancy way of saying that over time, disparaging rumors tend to become focused on the largest and best known businesses in their market sector, in essence because the bigger the company (or the bigger we perceive it to be), the more we are inclined to distrust it.
Let's face it, most of us live busy lives and are dining out more than ever before, which means we're putting our health in the hands of strangers more than ever before. And though we may not speak of it much, we have serious qualms about this -- qualms which find expression in urban legends about horrible things being done to our food. The stories are usually false, thank goodness, but our misgivings are all too real.
