Ever had one of those weird days when you pick up a delicious dinner from the drive-through and discover a bag of weed got thrown in there as a bonus? No? Well, that's what happened to Carla McFarland one fine day. And before you start thinking that must be the happiest meal ever, you should know that she had two small children in the car with her. McFarland found a plastic baggie of marijuana with her order of fries from a Sonic in Frederick, Maryland.
She had just passed chicken strips and another order of fries to her children, ages 6 and 8, in the back seat. And the weed was actually inside a container of fries, so she wouldn't have seen it first if she'd happened to pass that one to her kids instead. Can you imagine? Not cool, fast food employee! Not cool.
“I just kind of sat there in my car in shock,” McFarland told The Frederick News-Post. “I kept thinking, what if my kids had eaten it?” Exactly! This would scare the bajeezus out of any parent. She called the restaurant and one of the employees fessed up, claiming the drugs must have fallen out of her apron or something. Like, whatever.
Needless to say the employee was fired, the police are investigating, and the restaurant apologized and gave McFarland a refund for her meal.
Apparently some folks in McFarland's circle thought the story was a gas. "I think that's why everyone thinks it's so funny, because it's marijuana and it's going to be legalized,” she said. But I can imagine how it would feel to be in her shoes, and how this would actually scare me. “It could have been crack. It could have been cocaine in that little baggie.” Exactly! It's not so much about how dangerous or harmless marijuana is -- it's about someone slipping a controlled substance into a bag of food you're planning to feed your kids!
Obviously we take a risk every time we eat out and every time we pick up food from the drive-through. But what keeps the whole system working is a certain level of trust. You want to know what you're getting, no surprises. So if I were McFarland, this would turn me off from the drive-through for a while. It kind of shatters the illusion that our food is always safe.
How would you feel if you found a baggie of pot with your order -- if you were trying to feed your kids?
Image via Keith McDuffee/Flickr