There is a such thing as a free lunch

Yesterday I met a friend for lunch. I ordered half a club sandwich with a side of greens. What I didn’t order was this:

What does this have to do with lunch? Let me tell you:

I was eating my lunch without a care in the world and finally came to the last remaining lettuce leaf of my salad. I ate it, chewing, talking, laughing, having a grand old time, when I happened to look down on my plate.

That’s when I saw it: A dead yet fully intact lady bug on my plate with salad dressing on top of it.

At first I was shocked. I thought, “This can’t be right. Maybe I’m just not reading the situation correctly? Maybe there’s some kind of explanation for this that makes everything totally normal?”

But then I realized, no, there’s is no other way to read this situation. I said aloud to my friend, “There’s a LADYBUG on my plate!!!” She looked over, saw said ladybug, and honestly, I can’t even remember what she said because I was so stunned. And nauseous.

The only thing I did remember her saying was, “Well, if I had to find a bug on my plate, I guess a ladybug would be the one to find.”

To which I replied, “Yes, I suppose it’s like finding a puppy,” which makes no sense whatsoever but at the time I was mostly concentrating on trying not to puke so being able to get words out was just a bonus. I then added, “Yeah, what if it was a centipede?” which made me even more nauseous and I decided I needed to be done speaking of this.

Needless to say, the server was shocked and very apologetic. He wouldn’t let me pay for lunch. The hostess said she hoped I would still come back. I said I would, but all I could think about was how I needed to disinfect my tongue with a Wet Wipe ASAP.