Rainforest Cafe serves a kid a burger with batteries in it

We all know the old stories about how you better be nice to your waiter or waitress because if you are not these "on the edge" staff members might very well spit in your food or do something else to it. I worked in food service for many years and can personally attest to the fact that this never actually happens, at least not at the places that I worked at. It would get you reprimanded if you did so much as barely violate the very stringent sanitation codes that exist in these places and that is what makes this story so alarming about Rainforest Cafe.

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To me Rainforest Cafe is a place that tourists go to for very average food and then have the pleasure of paying 3 times what it is actually worth. It is akin to Hollywood Cafe if those still exist as well as the Hard Rock Cafe's that are slowly starting close globally once it was discovered that most of their relics are actually fakes.

It is an Applebees with elaborate surroundings and normally some sort of giant aquarium.

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They are nice looking places that is for sure, but not nice enough that I am going to pay $40 for an $8 burger. Despite this they remain popular in certain markets and in particular with families that have kids. For me this is just one more reason to not go there because I know no dining hell that is worse that a place with a bunch of screaming kids running around the place.

In the Houston Rainforest Cafe things got a bit weird and potentially deadly when a grandmother took her granddaughter Isabella for what was meant to be a memorable experience when all of a sudden the kid took a bite, her 4th or 5th bite, crunched on something and then spit something back on her plate. It turns out it was a flat battery that is used in wristwatches.

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Obviously, this is not something that is supposed to be on the burger and it turns out that there were 2 more batteries in the burger as well. The grandmother freaked out of course and took her granddaughter to the hospital where it was discovered that she had already ingested one of the batteries. According to medical reports, Isabella has to have surgery because due to the stomach's very powerful acid, they had about a 3 hour window of opportunity before the battery started to corrode and this can have very serious implications on the body.

I grew up being one of those guys that thought that your stomach acid is so powerful that it can digest almost anything and it is just some amazing wonder that the acid in our guts doesn't just eat through our bodies all the time.

As far as I know Isabella is fine and the restaurant chain is conducting a "full investigation," whatever that means. The chain also had a police report filed against it and you cane be guaranteed that a civil suit involving vast sums of money are in the works as well.

I can't really imagine that watch batteries accidentally ended up in the mince that is used to make burgers and it seems to me as though this could probably be some sort of local disgruntled staff member who is one of those crazies that just wants to hurt anyone that they possibly can. I fear that this is kind of the world we live in now where there is so much anger and angst in the working world that people want to harm others, even if they don't have any idea who those people actually are.

I preferred the days where when someone tried to kill someone, that it was someone specific and normally for a pretty good reason. These days with the whole pushing of random strangers in front of trains, randomly punching Asians on the streets for the crime of being Asian, and now putting batteries in burgers has kind of become so common that it makes people fearful to really do anything.

I recall when I was younger that a legal block party was visited by some youngsters who ran through the crowd and just started randomly stabbing people as they ran through. This was an isolated incident and even though the kids were minors they ended up being tried as adults and are still in jail - which is a good thing seeing as how anyone who would want to hurt random people without any real objective in mind is the worst kind of person on the planet.

I hope that if and when they do find out who put these batteries in the burger that there are severe consequences for them.

The Rainforest Cafe immediately went through all the prepared burger patties in the search for more batteries and found none. I think this should really narrow down who is responsible and it is likely the person who prepares the burgers. The issue we face now is how do we prove it unless there are cameras in the kitchen, which there almost certainly are not.

This is a dumb crime committed by a dumb and possibly insane person and I sincerely hope they are caught and punished severely. In the meantime I was never going to be a customer at an overpriced place like Rainforest Cafe but I suppose this is just one more reason for me to continue to be that way.