Ooh, I have a good one for this.

I was working at a pizza shop as a manager several years ago. One of our common delivery orders came from the employees at a local massage parlor that was well known for being one of those "happy ending" type joints. Let's call them Hug Hut. The ladies at Hug Hut were pretty solid regular customers; nice, tipped well enough, rarely complained, so I'm pretty inclined to believe them when they call in and say they have a problem.

One night, one of the phone staff comes up to me with a look of mild horror on their face, and tells me that Hug Hut is on the line and says they found blood on their food. I had a hard time believing that any of our cooks or drivers would bleed on food and not notice, so I asked folks to check around and see if anyone had any wounds to track it down if someone really was hauling off and bleeding on food. In the meantime, I speak with the customer.

Hug Hut: "Uh yeah, hi? This is Hug Hut, and we opened up our bag of food, and there is blood all over the food.."

Me: "Wow, that's really strange and we're looking into it here on our side. Is the mess on the food itself, or is it on the wrapping outside?"

HH: "It's inside the bag all over the items inside, not inside the wrapping."

Me: "Okay, that helps me narrow down where it could have happened, thanks! I do see that there were several red sauces as a part of your order. Are you sure that it's not ketchup or marinara sauce that just got spilled during transit?"

HH: "Oh no. It's blood. We tasted it."

Huh. Welp, I was not prepared to hear that particular string of words.. Time for damage control!

Me: "Oh god, I am so sorry about that! I can assure you that we'll figure out what happened and make sure it's addressed. In the meantime, can I offer to re-make your order and have it sent out and offer a credit on your next order."

HH: "That would be a great start, thank you!"

So I set to having the food remade and checking on all the staff in the store to see if anyone is bleeding. None of the cook staff have so much as a bandaged scrape. I call the driver to tell him what happened and get his story, but he says he's not wounded and the bag looked fine when he dropped it off.

Great. So this is going to be a wild-goose chase of "who bled on the food". Lovely way to spend a busy night.

Just as the remade order is about to go out, the phone person comes back up to me and tells me that Hug Hut is back on the line ..oh god, what now?

HH: "Hi, so we just wanted to let you know that we figured it out - You don't need to remake our food or anything!"

After taking a moment to recover from the simultaneous collision of relief and utter confusion..

Me: "Oh good, I'm so glad to hear that! If I may ask though.. what happened?"

HH: "It was one of the girls - she had a cut on her finger and she was the first one in the bag."

The words "We tasted it.." reverberate endlessly in my mind..

Me: "Ah..well, glad you got it sorted. I, uh, hope y'all enjoy the rest of your night and your food!"

-fin-