Sometimes The Jokes Just Write Themselves

So I'm going along, surfing MSNBC, which has replaced CNN as the web site where I get my news (aside - that might be the most useless piece of information any of you reads today), and I come across this article talking about people getting sick at an Olive Garden - which turns out to be the one up in Castleton. The Indianapolis Star also has the story, which goes into more detail about the incident.

Okay, so that part isn't exactly a joke - well, apart from the idea that people would actually want to eat at Olive Garden, rather than at a place like, say, Augustino's or Iaria's; and yet that's still not quite a joke.

But this is - toward the end of the article in the Star, they cite the statement released by the parent company of Olive Garden, which says, in part: "We're pleased the health department has determined our guests should feel comfortable continuing to dine at Olive Garden." Not that I would have expected them to admit fault, or anything, but come on...comfortable?!

Hell, I don't know. Maybe it was a fluke that 250 people got sick, including some of the EMPLOYEES; but I wonder just how comfortable the person who wrote that statement would be about eating at that particular Olive Garden. Reminds me of that scene from Erin Brockovich (which I hated, and for which Julia Roberts won an Oscar she did not deserve), when they're sitting around that meeting table, and Erin tells the people that they had the water flown in special just for them - and then they all get disgusted looks on their faces.

The cause of the illnesses has not yet been discovered, or not reported, at any rate - which means this one will be around to laugh at for at least another couple of days. So here's a good idea for an office pool: make up a calendar that goes for about the next month or six weeks - and then everybody in the office bets on which day in that upcoming time span will be the one on which Nancy Grace or Bill O'Reilly will go on TV and blame this recent string of restaurant illnesses on the terrorists.

But if you want something really funny, read the comments posted in response to the article in the Star. Actually, it's about half funny and half sad - there's one where the person mentions anorexia and bulimia (if you can wade through all the misspelled words), and yet manages not to make any sense at all.