Don't Tell Wanda

My assistant, Wanda, called in sick last week. Actually she emailed in sick. Sick as a dog she said. Severe diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps and vomiting. She said she had never been so sick in her life.

I figured she had a severe case of the virus that has been going around. My advice to her was to please stay home and get over it because I sure didn’t want it.

She watched the news the other night and decided to go check the number on her Peter Pan peanut jar. In just so happened that she had enjoyed a piece of peanut butter toast the morning she got sick.


You guessed it. 2111 was on the jar. She had been attacked by the bacteria known as Salmonella that happened to be hiding in her peanut butter jar. The Salmonella bacteria was first discovered by an American scientist with the last name Salmon.

Don’t tell Wanda this, but the Salmonella germs are actually microscopic living creatures that pass from the feces of people or animals to other people or animals.

There are two things we can learn from this bacteria outbreak.

The first lesson is that Great Value Peanut Butter and Peter Pan Peanut Butter are one in the same. It all comes from the same pile of peanuts and the same pile of peanut oil and maybe the same pile of rat do-do in the same plant in Sylvester Georgia. I haven’t checked but I have a feeling the “Great Value” brand is a little cheaper than the “Peter Pan” variety.

So if you are shopping for Peanut Butter you may as well reach for the Great Value brand. However, right now you may want to reach for the Jiffy brand.

In fact you may just want to go for the grape jelly and leave all the peanut butter alone.

The second and more important lesson is that you never know what you are really eating when you put stuff in your mouth.


There is a real possibility that it is not very difficult for rats to be roaming around in the peanut butter making process. From what I have read, there is a real possibility that the Salmonella bacteria in this case came from rat pellets in the peanut butter.

For some reason that makes ME want to throw up and I haven’t even eaten any peanut butter. I can tell you I really don’t have the urge to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today.

The good news is that Wanda can get a full refund on her jar of tainted peanut butter. That is really nice and encouraging.

You can tell her that.

But whatever you do, don’t tell her about the rat pellets. She may email in sick next week.