The Chicken and Rice Weren't Nearly As Good

Picture me at my kitchen table. I have just sat down, anticipating dinner, and I am hungry. The day before, the boys and I had gone to Costco, where they make some fairly yummy prepared meals. They have a Mediterranean salad that I like, but it's really just a gussied-up tortellini salad with artichoke hearts and tomatoes. I like it despite their airs of pretentiousness.

Mr. Personality and I had just come from the park, and we were a bit late getting home, thus no real time to prepare a "hearty" meal. Leftovers for him, pre-made salad for me. Food is on the table and all is good with the world.

I pop open the lid, take out one of the plastic forks which they are so very kind to provide, and spear a tortellini with great gusto. I put it in my mouth, savoring the pasta and cheese flavors.

Then, I look down.

A little bit off to the side, there it sits.

The foreign hair.

My formerly tasty tortellini turns to bits of mush which I want to spit out instantly. I tell myself I am being silly, and continue eating the lone tortellini. I look at the hair. I ask my stomach just exactly how hungry it is. Is is hungry enough to ignore the long, very black hair that has nestled itself under a few tortellini, and is curling around a tomato?

The answer. Is. No.

What exactly is it about an unknown hair in our food that would provoke such a response? Now, I'm not talking about pubic hair, which is a whole other ball of wax, my friends. If it had been a pubic hair I think I would still be too traumatized to write about it. This was clearly from a head.

I mean, most people wash their hair at least every other day, and I was trying to think about what gross things could get on someone's head, and I had to conclude that there was probably hair product and whatever oil from the person's head on the hair. That's it.

So why could I not just gingerly take out the items that were actually touching the hair and plow into the rest of the hopefully untouched salad?

Perhaps it was a fear of the unknown. Maybe this person washed their hair very infrequently. Or even that this hair was one of many that I just couldn't see that were buried in the salad, waiting to unfurl themselves in my mouth.

Then I got resentful. Why couldn't this person who assembled the salad and put the lid on have seen the hair and just taken it out? Then I would have been blissfully unaware and would not have had to get up and make myself another dinner. Because I'm just lazy that way, and when I am expecting a certain dinner, I want that dinner. Is that so unreasonable?

But the larger question now is- do I take it back at almost eight bucks, or do I just let sleeping hairs lie?

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