Every day I eat a Dole Light Caesar salad bag. The whole bag. They are delicious and low in calories and I can’t find the same great tasting dressing in anything than the tiny packs within the complete salad bag. Also, it has the tiny croutons, which are superior to big croutons. I’m trying to lose weight, so I’ve been substituting my regular lunch of hot pockets and pop tarts for salad. This salad makes me the least sad of all of the salads.
This isn’t a sponsored post. After the last sponsored post I wrote, it’s safe to say I will probably not being doing those anymore. But, Dole, hi, if you’re feeling like sending me fat cash, I won’t tell you ‘no’. Also, go ahead and stop reading now, you love me. Send me stuff.
Today I was doing my normal routine: watching Anderson Cooper 360 from last night (he’s the silver fox) while playing internet Spades (by ‘playing’ I mean mercilessly harassing a dude that was angry at me because my nil got set. I kept calling him ‘1800’ because that was his ranking. My ranking is 118. Out of 14,000. See how I just casually threw that in? I do it in everyday conversation as well.) and eating my salad. I don’t pay much attention to the salad as I eat it. Fortunately today, I wasn’t just shoving it straight into my mouth without looking nd noticed a gigantic bug in the bottom of my salad. It was the SAME DAMN COLOR OF THE ROMAINE. It was the size of a small child and hissed at me. Okay. It was the size of a dime and dead, but still, with the jeebs I’m still feeling, it might as well have been. 
So I called Dole. They were experiencing high call volume. Probably because of all the bug salads. While I was waiting to talk to a representative, I asked Lance how I could make the conversation hilarious. He answered, “Uh, humor is a given in this situation. Also, I’m pretty sure the bug just winked at me.” After 16 minutes of being thoroughly indoctrinated by the recording (Did you know Dole onions are good for your colon?), I talked to Becky (I named her that. I couldn’t remember her name, but she seemed like a ‘Becky’. Very perky. Didn’t mind that I called her Becky.), the conversation went something like this:
Becky: “Thank y’all for calllin’ Dole today, sweetheart, what can I do for you today?”
Me: “Becky, hi, I just ate a bug salad and now I’m going to be fat forever!”
Becky: “I’m not sure I gave you my…”
Me: “Becky. The bug was huge. HUGE. I can’t trust salads anymore! Salads! What has this world come to?!
Becky: “I’m terribly sorry to hear about your bug salad, but we at Dole want you to know that you can trust salads. The world is still a good place. We want to make it up to you…”
Me: “That’s what they all say! TRUST ME! The trust has been broken and now I’m going back to my Hot Pocket Pop Tart lifestyle. I’m going to get diabetes! Like Wilford Brimley and me and that dude already have a history.”
Becky: “This is very rare. Rest assured that had you actually ate the bug, it was thoroughly washed and triple sanitized. It would not have hurt you.”
Me: “I’m already hurt, Becky, to my CORE! It wasn’t just the bug. It’s what the bug SYMBOLIZES!”
Becky: “I’m not sure what we’re talking about here…are you… are you going to be okay? Do you need me to call someone for you?”
Me: “I’m going to be fat forever. I tried switching from my all-processed diet and this is what I get. Bugs. Lesson learned, Becky. LESSON LEARNED!”
The conversation went on like this for quite some time. We reached an impasse. She promised to replace my bug salad with another potential delicious bug salad and I countered with an all expense paid trip to the Dole Plantation in Hawaii. She doubled the amount of coupons I will get and the manager said that if I stopped sobbing, he wouldn’t tell anyone about the “bizarre threats” and “weird foot thing” I had let slip during the tense holdout.
So, total win.
The people at Dole are good, I like them. They don’t know too much about me. They would never use that information to bring a shame on my family. Also, coupons!
And their products are fantastic for preventing colorectal cancer.
They mentioned that A LOT.
Lexi Mag 
Onions are good for the colon? Then they haven’t met my colon. Onions are the reason I ended up seeing a GI and put on the FODMAP diet. No more onions for me! And honestly, I feel a lot better. I’ve lost weight too. Significant weight. It turns out that onions are worse for me than chocolate. Who knew? Anyone want a s’more?
I’d like to arrange a meetup of Dole and your colon.
You are hysterical! And that bug is NASTY! I tend to find surprises in the farmers market lettuce…but that’s because I know it was just picked and that I need to wash it….but to be “triple washed and sanitized” as “Becky” said…well…I wouldn’t trust that claim either! haha!
Weird foot thing? Really Lexi? I’m dying over here. DYING.
Don’t die. I need you.
Cheers! With my pop tart. Except I never found a bug in my salad. I’m just trying to get diabetes. Taking one for the rest of civilization. You’re welcome, world.
You’re a good person, Cheryl. Super good.
I just threw up a little in my mouth. I had salad today, too. I hope all the crunchy stuff was truly plant matter and NOT a bug. Guess I am safe since it was triple washed and sanitized, though…
You can really make my day, I needed this…..I love your outlook on things. Laughter is the best medicine but almost eating a bug may make me fast for a few days…..so skinny for a couple days until I got over it then…..as you say fat forever! 🙂
I wish it made me fast. I went to the store and bought everything I could find that would never have bugs in it. Like hohos.
Oh. My. Gosh. Laughing so hard… as I eat Fritos and/or peanutbutter and jelly or something of that sort for lunch instead of my originally planned salad. I hate dieting and calorie counting, but I joined a gym yesterday… and went swimming (not real swimming like laps- the kind of swimming you do when you are the parent of 3 kids and you take them with you, I have one kid who kinda swims, one who barely floats and one who prefers to be escorted around the pool on top of a floaty frog- I probably burned more calories than the lap swimmers… At least that’s what I tell myself).
You totally did.
Wouldn’t it be super great if stress burned calories?
‘Rest assured that had you actually ate the bug, it was thoroughly washed and triple sanitized….’
yikes! thanks for the giggle AND the reminder to check my salad carefully before eating! 🙂
Er, yuck! Bug salad. . . I knew that there was a reason I avoided eating foods that were green!
green skittles are okay.
A bug in your salad is actually a good sign! Bugs are perfectly harmless and an indication that your salad isn’t full of pesticides. We all eat bugs all the time that we don’t even know about. Most people who are allergic to chocolate are actually allergic to the insect parts in the chocolate. Also, the red dye called carmine often used for grapefruit juice is made out of a scale insect.
You’ve ruined me.
I agree with you, Jessica. Bugs ARE a good thing! They are an essential part of the biological world (which we completely depend on). Having them on salad plants is a perfectly normal thing. Anyone ever grown their own salad?
And I’d bet there are more bugs in your hoho’s, fritos, and what not than in your salad — those things are so processed I imagine it is quite easy to just grind the bugs up and incorporate them into the mix.
Um, I don’t know what’s worse, your bug salad or the comment above mine!
How do you sanitize salad?
Eeewwww so much yuck! For some reason this reminds me of Russell Crowe in Master & Commander when they have weevil races after eating dinner in the Captain’s chamber. Gives me shudders, but that was in like Napoleon’s time – this bug salad, so wrong.
Oh, heeellllllll no!
I’m so sorry I read this. I, too, am incorporating more salad into my life…usually from a Qdoba restaurant I often pass in my work-related travels. I, too, am trying to lose some weight. I can’t believe my “girlfriend” gave my son a small heart of chocolate to give to me on Valentine’s Day, when she knows I’m a chocoholic. Here I am 10 pounds later…well 7 pounds later since doing the salad thing. I’m not usually a visual person, but now I’m going to PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO MY SALAD INGREDIENTS!!! Thanks for the warning, but as I said before…I’m so sorry I read this post. 😦 From: Noelle http://www.superbtherapy.blogspot.com http://www.blogtalkradio.com/superbtherapy
You totally should have been a lawyer. This reasoning is exactly what’s missing in the courtroom these days. Actually, I have no idea if that’s true. I’m just a bit over-saturated on “The Good Wife” right now. But I hope you threw in some OBJECTION YOUR HONOR s and refused a few questions on the grounds that it may incriminate you. A BUG IN YOUR SALAD??? What is this world coming to?????
D, I peed a little. ANd I just washed these couch cushions!
Eight years ago that exact same thing happened to a co-worker of mine, except she hadn’t opened the salad bag yet. Dole refused to believe her, so I guess this is progress? Yay, Dole!
Progress will be when I go to Hawaii.
Oh, Leix, I was laughing so hard, my coworkers wondered what about educational law could possibly be that funny. This is truly hilarious. Thank you.
No Child Left Behind is kind of hilarious. I mean, high standards and no funding? LAUGH RIOT.
This made me laugh SO hard!! I found LIVE bugs in a pre-made salad from Albertson’s when I lived in WA, so I know how you feel.
I lived in the military housing (Helemano) that is situated in the middle of the Dole Pineapple Plantation on O’ahu for a year. It smelled great, but the Cane Spiders gave me PTSD. Bugs ruin everything!
You make an excellent point here. Crap, now I have nothing.
Ok I am now going to rip open all my salad kits and go thu them out of total paranoia LOL! This was hilarious, a laugh I totally needed today!
Hell-to-the-no. I would not be eating salad in a looooong time.
I eat Romaine hearts. I used to just take a knife and cut cross-section slices from the top, down. It was fast and made such nice shredded pieces…… that was untilled I found a GIANT FULLY WINGED DRAGONFLY between the leaves!!!! I still eat my Romaine salads but now I strip back the leaves before my shred-cut. NEVER am I without remembering that BUG or without wonder of how many cruchy green pieces of my salads have been DRAGONFLY! We need protein too, but I’d rather go to Hawaii!
Having dinner at a lovely hotel restaurant in Dallas, I glanced down at my salad that was ..umm….waving to me. Closer inspection revealed a mid size grasshopper-missing a leg or two- that was STILL ALIVE. I squealed a bit, grabbed a waitress and pointed out the MOVING salad. She just said “o! Do you want a different salad? ” No apology. . No coupon. No alarm.
Amazingly the next morning I had a tiny dead bug doing the backstroke in my fresh OJ. Think that hotel needed a visit from the bug guys.
Fortunately I am not overly squeamish and it didn’t ruin the whole weekend. Your husband is right-humor is just about the only way to handle it.
That’s a pretty good sized bug. That looked like the thing that appeared in my bag of farmer’s market potatoes.
Oh my goodness! You are HYSTERICAL!! That bug is nasty! I am not sure I would ever eat a salad again:) LOL!