idiotpruf

What was that Crunchy Thing in My Pudding?

I think I just ate something that broods.

You’re enjoying a delicious cup of pudding; savoring it’s smooth, creamy, crunchy goodness.

Wait a minute–crunchy?

Crunchy is not an adjective that’s generally associated with pudding. What did you just bite into? What did you just swallow? You feel a subtle unease in the pit of your stomach. Your mind begins to race, pondering the crunch causing possibilities.

Was it a clump of dirt? That would be bad, but it could be worse; it could be much worse.

The pain in your stomach grows a little.

That crunch had an exoskeleton feel to it. You may have just eaten an insect. What kind of insect could it have been? Your mind immediately leaps to most disgusting insect possible: the Egyptian dung beetle. Beetles that use rolled balls of dung for food or brooding; it definitely had the feel of something that broods.

The sick feeling in your stomach intensifies.

Stop it. Dung beetles are far too large to fit in your cup of pudding; it’s almost certainly a smaller insect.

You think it could have been a bedbug, but it was too large to be a bedbug. Unless it was a cluster of bedbugs, or worse: an abnormally large mutant bedbug…that probably just fed on someone with hepatitis.

You begin to feel a little dizzy

Then it hits you, the worst case scenario: what if it was a piece of rat feces? What’s the acceptable amount of rat feces in pudding? You hope it’s not measured in chunks. What if the rat had Bubonic Plague? You may have just become ground zero for an outbreak of the Black Death.

And you thought Bill Cosby couldn’t get creepier.

You vomit.

As you try to catch your breath, you notice absolutely nothing offensive in your vomit.

You inspect it very carefully (which in itself is a little weird) and still you find nothing. It was probably just your imagination.

You feel silly, regulations involving food production are far to strict for it to have been anything else.

Meanwhile, in a pudding factory on the edge of small village in a remote part of Bolivia:

First worker: Hey, I think something just fell into the vat of pudding.

Second worker: What was it?

First worker: It looked like something with an exoskeleton, something that broods, possibly an Egyptian dung beetle.

Second worker: Why would there be an Egyptian dung beetle here in Bolivia?

First worker: I don’t know. Why are we speaking English in Bolivia?

Second worker: Stop asking stupid questions and stir the pudding.

First worker: Maybe it was a chunk of rat feces. I wonder what the acceptable amount of rat feces in pudding is.

Second worker: Is there an unacceptable amount of rat feces in pudding?

They both laugh hysterically.

“Where do you want to brood?”
“How about the nearest Bolivian pudding factory?”
“Perfect.”