With a mouthful of food you take took a nice big refreshing sip of soda; that's odd? Diet? Orange? Tea? What did they give you this time? Another ill-fated sip and you become keenly aware that you had grievously erred - you take the lid off the drink and the fumes are almost overpowering - Instead of Dr. Pepper you have received some sort of toxic cocktail.

Your throat begins to burn as the harsh liquid soaks in and lays its poisonous trail to your stomach. "911" springs to mind and seconds later you are online with the ER and then Poison Control. "Fluids, lots of them, don’t induce vomiting, if the condition worsens get yourself to the hospital."

Your nerves go into toxic shock overload and your hands begin to shake uncontrollably. Your mind races, but you manage to dial the number to Wendy's. If they didn’t already know that they had a severe problem they had to be informed. But they did know and their response; "We’re sorry, we’re having a problem with our soda machine. We could send you a coupon."

"A COUPON!!! This is a serious problem!" You hang up the line and dial ‘1411’ if this "poison" has this severe an effect on you what could this stuff do to a child? You call Wendy’s Corporate Headquarters - Closed - and there isn't an "in case of emergency number." You’re stymied, you can’t think of who else to call and you have to sit down before you fall down.

Four days later the nausea and unending stomach pain is as bad as it was when you had original consumed the tainted Dr. Pepper. The toxic after taste in your throat has subsided but now you have a swelling pain in your head that feels like your skull is going to explode. You can only guess that the toxic contaminants have entered your bloodstream and found their way to your brain. Your body feels like it is shutting down. Unable to walk, and barely able to focus you crawl to the bathroom and somehow managed to get yourself into the tub - it would be a nice, cool place to die.

Miraculously you don’t die. Coca-cola and the Wendy’s Corporation probably hope now that you had, simply because a dead customer is more cordial than an unhappy one. But then again unhappy for you is a monumental understatement and the "free coupon" you receive in the mail only serves to aggravate you even more.

You begin to research the product and circumstances involved and turn up multiple reasons as to how or why the soft drinks at Wendy’s could have been contaminated. You learn things about the chemical contents of soda pop. About the injuries and accidents that occur from chemical reactions with soft drink ingredients. Facts that boggle the mind. There’s copper and lead poisoning which occur from a reaction with CO2. There’s Chlorine gas which could have reacted and formed in a variety of different ways. Don’t forget the incompetence factor you have to account for on behalf of any unqualified or unsupervised workers fiddling with the equipment.

You complain to one of the local Health Department and they conduct there own investigation. It becomes a matter of record that there was in fact a problem at Wendy’s, but it has been corrected and everything is a-okay now. Wendy’s concedes as much but all they are willing to admit is that incident resulted in the soda having an "off taste." That there is no reason for them to believe anything was amiss with their products - that you must have imagined the whole thing.

The steam coming out of your ears is almost as thick as the toxic mist that was emanating from your tainted beverage. You can’t help but wonder if they would have put that on your headstone or in the coroner’s report - died from an acute occurrence of "off taste." The only thing that comes to mind is that the only thing "off" is someone off their rocker over at Wendy’s.

You continue your research and uncover a slew of odd goings-on at the Wendy’s on the day in question. Reportedly there was a frozen water line that interrupted the service of the soda fountain and caused an unspecified mixture of the "post-mix" (soda pop) elements. Whether the problem was inside or outside the building is unclear and what time this chain of events transpired is unknown to you.

You find out that there was a "Coke" technician who either was or wasn’t there to repair the equipment. You have reports that vary as to whether he was there before, during, or after the time of the incident and you have no idea which to believe.

Next you wonder if Jack and Jill loaned their bucket to Wendy’s? You wonder this because you receive information that either the employees at Wendy’s or the Coke technician or both were feeding water into the soft drink dispenser by way of an open bucket. An open mop bucket? An open garbage bucket? An open bucket of worms? Your mind spins and you can hardly venture to guess what kind of contaminants found their way into that bucket and into you? Perhaps the proof is in the pop? Don’t forget the incompetence factor.

You wonder how many rules and regulation had been ignored and then accordingly violated. Rules set forth by the Health Department to help protect you - the customer against mishaps just like this one. But why should Wendy’s or Coke care about and regulations?

Why would it be otherwise? After further investigation you find out that these fast food chains, restaurants, and the producers of the products sold to them and by them answer to NO ONE, well - except the local Health Department. How much power does the Health Department really have? I will probably find out after they read this and come to my house and condemn it for some obscure violation.

What about the FDA? The rules set forth by the FDA do NOT govern food or beverage products sold by restaurants nor do they accept complaints about those foods and beverages. Restaurants could sell you strychnine by the pound and the FDA would be like - sorry not our department - and probably nothing would come of it.

That leaves only the avenue of legality? That’s where you go head to head with the highest paid defense attorneys in existence and hope you don’t end up in the recipe yourself. Maybe if you get lucky and don’t fall into a legal loophole five years down the road and forty-seven appeals later you might get a settlement, that is if you aren’t dead. And you can forget about an apology, because they won’t admit to doing anything wrong in the first place - seriously wrong that is - not just sorry we forgot the mayonnaise wrong.

Wendy’s management knew there was a problem with their soft drink products yet they continued to sell them as if they were fine. How far is too far for a buck twenty-nine? Coke and Wendy’s Corporate responsibility or deniability suggests that there is no such thing as too far. Any concern for customer safety and customer satisfaction does not exceed the limits of the "free coupon."

When common sense has left the building customer safety simply becomes a ruse used to keep the river of currency flowing. All you can do is hope your attorney has a bigger oar then theirs does.

If anyone out there visited the Wendy’s in Rochester on South Broadway on 1/11/03 and suffered or knows of someone who suffered even half the amount of trauma aforementioned, please don’t hesitate to contact me (I am not an attorney) at; popwoes11103@aol.com