Fingergate's Inevitable End

Tim Cavanaugh | April 23, 2005

Cops declare the whole thing a hoax, arrest Anna Ayala, woman who claimed to have found a finger in a bowl of chili at a San Jose Wendy's. Bay Area Wendy's restaurants claim $2.5 million in lost business. Ayala charged with attempted grand larceny. Headline writers compete for puns on "finger." DVD sales of The Hitcher, promising but ultimately disappointing 1986 Rutger Hauer/C. Thomas Howell joint that contains a finger-in-fast-food plot twist, remain flat. I still wonder what the big bulbous thing to the left of the fingertip is in all the pictures they show. Hoax or no hoax, I wouldn't be caught dead in either Wendy's or San Jose, let alone a San Jose Wendy's, but I hope the authorities can finally return the finger to its rightful owner.