Man Claims To Have Found Condom In Soup
A man in Mission Viejo, California, says when he began eating his french onion soup over Easter brunch at the restaurant Claim Jumper, he bit into something rubbery. He "spit out the piece of cheese only to discover he had been chewing on what his wife claimed was a condom."
Philip Hodousek, the alleged victim, says the general manager attempted to pass it off as a piece of a rubber glove, but according to the Digital Journal, "The family inspected the item more closely deciding that it was in fact a condom."
Hodousek took the condom with him and had it tested by a lab, which found female DNA on it. Happy Easter! Hodousek is now suing the restaurant.
The problem, however, is that Claim Jumper says the entire lawsuit is without merit, and that they've found no evidence to support his claims. They also say they conducted DNA tests on female employees—which we find a little hard to believe, but who knows, maybe the employees voluntarily submitted to it—and none of them match the DNA on the condom. In addition, they say Hodousek failed to show up for a DNA test of his own at their request.
"Waiter, there's a rubber in my soup" [Digital Journal] (Thanks to Dave!)
(Photo: foodistablog)
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Comments:
So THAT'S where I left it...
What, are fingers only considered appropriate garnish for chili?
the DNA claim sounds dubious- if the wife touched it, it could very well be HER DNA. and the comments in the story has a good point- how big is the spoon that he doesn't realize he is putting a condom in his mouth?!
@CubeRat:
(Please note that I do not condone tampering with people's foods as it is disgusting and no matter how rude a customer is, it is never ok to mess with food)
Ugh i really shouldnt read these kinds of things before going to lunch.
@jeteplumererie: Also, it needed his wife to tell him its a condom. That guy is so full of fail, he deserves to have a condom in his soup.
[kidding. for the most part.]
now in our restaurants, occasionally there's confusion over which is the GARBAGE and which is the LINEN BIN, but not so much confusing garbage with SOUP.
disgusting.
Just female DNA? Wouldn't it make more sense if there were male DNA on it too? I mean, I'm not the expert on this sort of thing, but aren't condoms designed for use that involves at least one male?
@TCama: I'm guessing that the guy that used it took it off inside out. His DNA was washed off by the soup.
And wouldn't the most likely person to drop a condom a dude?
Speaking as someone who's worked food service in the past, it's probably not a condom, but a finger cot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_cot). They're used when someone who wouldn't normally wear a glove has a cut on the finger, you put it on over your bandaid and it (ideally) keeps it from falling off and keeps you from contaminating food. Now, I'm not saying that it wouldn't still be disgusting if that were the case, but it would put this into the realm of 'honest mistake', as opposed to 'revolting prank'.
@CaffiendCA: How do we know if it was used? Maybe a female employee or friend of an employee didn't like the person who ordered the soup and put a condom in the soup with the cheese so it wouldn't be noticed.
I found a cigarette butt in my chili once.
So..... I'm trying like hell to construct a plausible scenario here.
A. Someone was having sex in the kitchen as food is being prepared, no one else noticed or cared, and was careless with the clean up.
B. The sex happened long before, like maybe the middle of the night, and now we're talking about really old soup being served.
C. Some employee was dumb enough to drop a condom in the soup on purpose believing there would be no consequences to follow.
D. The customer needs money and did it himself.
E. It was the "Happy Soup Meal" and that was the prize.
I'm leaning towards customer fraud on this one. Especially since he didn't show up for the DNA test himself after they requested it.
@Geekmom: I would also think that all DNA would have been washed off by the soup or destroyed by the heat, or some other thing would have gotten rid of it.
There are so many strange facets to this story I don't even know where to begin.
This is why I rarely eat out at restaurants, I trust politicians more then I trust servers and cooks.
The only places good to eat is where the customer has no contact with a server, like a buffet or cafeteria, where I used to work. We never messed with people's food because we knew they paid good money to get in there.
@Dan Grossmann: I find buffets too repulsive to even think about eating from one. They've got numerous customers hands in there grabbing at food, and god knows how many of them wash their hands.
I trust expensive restaurants. When you pay $200 for a meal, it's a safe bet they aren't dropping condoms or snot in your food. But I also don't eat out much because of the cost.
Tyler Durden approves.
@MostlyHarmless: That is my favorite part. His wife knows what a condom looks like, but he doesn't? I think there are deeper problems here than even a condom in soup....
Can a person be exposed to HIV that way (the guy who ate the soup) I guess not - if it was that easy to get most everyone would probably have it by now. Anyone know?
@pupu: No, you would not get HIV/AIDS from putting a condom that was in hot soup in your mouth unless the condom was full of fresh blood and semen and your mouth had open sores and cuts.
if you want a possible reason behind why this guy things there is a condom in his soup here it is.
In a responsible restaurant if any of the kitchen staff cut themselves they stop what they are doing and clean and bandage the wound. BUT after that they put on what is called a FINGER condom which for all intents and purposes is IDENTICAL to a for sex condom. but there is no lube and its A LOT smaller.
But the problem is the streach and degrade when working and exposed to grease and heat after a while. From that point onward it is entierly possbile that it can fall off.
Presto you now have a condom in your french onion soup that is NOT actually a "for sexy times" item
Let's not forget that while LA has 7,000 rape kits waiting for DNA testing, but this (admittedly gross) allegation warrants DNA testing?
I think it came from the T.G.I.Friday snake.
Is there any possiblity this might be a "finger condom" (as my co-workers in a restaurant and I used to fondly call them years ago)?
When any of the workers (cooks and prep guys especially) got a cut on their finger, they had to put a band-aid and a rubber 'finger condom' on it, which looked like tiny condom and rolled down your finger to the second knuckle. After getting those wet or greasy, they were very prone to slipping off. This would explain a) why there was only female DNA on it and b) why it was small enough to not notice until after the item was in his mouth.
I found a latex glove under my fish when I went to Skipper's. I brought it to the counter and they laughed and asked me if I was serious. I just looked at them and said, "Do I look like I'm fucking joking?" That shut them up, but dammit I should have at least asked for the food to be free, instead I just told them to get me some more.
@xay:
No, not even if the condom was sull of fresh semen and blodd and your mouth was full of gaping holes and wounds and lesions. HIV simply does not survive in the environment.
Sharing IV drug infecting needles, penetrative sex, occasional mother-child transmission. That's the only way to get HIV.
(HIV educator here)
@BZMedia: Yeah. I've gotten where I ignore about 99% of these... most of them are almost too implausible, and really, if you look at how many millions of meals are served at restaurants in the US each day, and how rarely these stories pop up, I think you have better odds of being in a plane crash than finding a thumb/frog/lizard/condom/etc in your food.
@jeteplumererie: Have you ever been to Claim Jumper? The food there is so ridiculously oversized that he may have been eating with a serving spoon. For reals.
Well, I guess that's what you get when you order the Cream of Sumyungai.
I actually LIKE Claim Jumper, but I haven't been able to eat there since I moved back to the Midwest. Maybe that is a GOOD thing.
@jeteplumererie: Remember, the spoon could have been regular size which would make the condom, well, "average".
Here's the thing: In the news link, the victims refused to show up for a DNA test themselves. Maybe they put it in themselves, like most scammers do when they find weird stuff in restaurant food?
Remember: this is just a CLAIM.
Didn't something similar happen a month or two ago and it turned out it was a "finger condom", something employees use when the get a cut. Hell, I've used one of those before. Though they look similar, they're tiny.
Ribbed for her pleasure.
But if it were a finger condom it would have an employee's DNA. CJ says its not employee DNA.
@DollaValueLIFO: I know you're just kidding, but that whole story wound up being debunked as an attempt to defraud Wendy's.
The father of a guy I played baseball with ran a couple dozen Wendy's franchises, and said from day one that there was no way a finger could have made it into Chili. It's packaged at highly controlled food processing plants, and anybody losing a finger at one of those places would have been documented immediately. You can't just hide a bloody stump in your trowsers and ask to go home for the day, nor would one want to.
A few months later, the truth came out, and sure enough, his theory was right - the lady put the finger in her own chili, and got busted for it.
"Waiter! What's the Spanish fly doing in my soup?!"
"I do believe it's the hand stroke, sir."
@skwish: Fine, fine point. I can back this up. I used to work in a sausage plant, and whenever one of the workers cut themselves, they were supposed to put on a finger condom for the rest of the day. I never saw one slip off, but we worked in a refrigerated environment. I could easily see that happening if you worked in a hot environment such as a kitchen.
And, yes, they look pretty much like the typical condom most Consumerist readers are familiar with, except slightly smaller.
Um, yeah... I heard that intercourse was like a hot french onion soup, so I sort of figured I'd, you know, try it and see. You can see how this is a tad embarrassing...
@jkinatl2: I thought blood to blood contact was a transmission vector. Or at least, it was thought to be when I took health class in the mid 90s. Is it no longer considered a viable source of transmission?
@HogwartsAlum: You missed one:
Customer says, "this soup has too much fukn salt and is cold as winter!!!"
Waiter returns with saltless, but warmer soup with a prize
Do they make the soup fresh? I thought it was brought in frozen from a supplier and then cooked?
Maybe the DNA was his wife's from chewing on the condom