It's never a nice feeling to tuck into your lunch, only to realise all too late that something else has got in there first.
Depending on where you are and what you're eating, it can be an annoying roommate or overeager child, or a clever cat or dog who's somehow figured out to open your fridge. Sometimes, though, it can be something else entirely. A slug, a spider; anything you'd be unhappy to find in your daily life, let alone crawling all over what you'd hoped was your lunch.
With all that in mind, perhaps a frog isn't the worst case scenario when it comes with unwanted lunch guests, and one Aldi shopper realised that in a pretty hilarious way toward the end of last month, when (quite relevantly to this conversation, really) they found a frog in their lettuce.
Shevaughan Tolputt was shopping at an Aldi near her home in Cornwall on the coast of England when, like many of us on a given day, she decided to pick up some lettuce. And I don't know about you, but I'm very glad she decided to pick this particular head of lettuce:
Buy one lettuce, get a frog free! Whatever will Aldi come up with next? Now, some people would have perhaps seen the frog as an accidental extra source of protein, but Tolputt - who's actually a vegan - told the BBC that she'd "certainly avoid any protein like that". Don't blame her, really.
"I was shocked, but I can also see the funny side of it," she said, and I certainly can too - it's not like it was a poisonous spider or a snake or anything. "I peeled off the outer layers of the lettuce and there it was. Of all the things I was not expecting that."
"I saw something move and there was a little pair of eyes looking back at me. He was really little. I shouted to my husband and he put him in a tupperware container.He was fine, he didn't seem unwell. Hopefully having him in the fridge for a few hours didn't harm him.
I spoke to the Aldi customer service team and they are looking into it. As it's an open product they do not know at what point it got into the production line. They have said they will monitor the situation. The team have been very good and quick at responding."
For their part in this, Aldi have apologised for the errant frog, and have refunded Tolputt for the inconvenience - compensating her a whole 36p. "We're sorry to hear of Ms. Tolputt's experience and have offered her a full refund. This type of incident, while incredibly rare, can naturally occur with fresh produce," said an Aldi spokesperson.
Well, then, there you go. Funnily enough, this isn't the first time that Shevaughan Tolputt has found something odd in her food - back in March, before she embarked on her vegan journey, she also found a stone in a can of chunky beef soup. Don't know about you guys, but a frog sounds much more lovely.
