The Infinite Weirdness of Real Life

What a severed finger in a bowl of chili tells us about life, fiction, and the value of science.

LinkedIn is the only social media platform where I am active, but I confess that from time to time, I like to scroll through TikTok. This does not feel age-appropriate, but it is what it is. One of my favorite things about it is the bizarre rabbitholes you can go down. For example, I am now a huge fan of beatboxing! I don't know why! I guess I am rabbithole folks. Rabbithole folk like to see where things lead, even though I know that doing so can create the illusion of cause and effect, and even worse, conspiracy!

The one that caught my eye today was courtesy of someone named Jason Pargin. He doesn't take credit for finding this rabbithole, but it is very kooky and weird. My favorite kind. He starts out with a recent New York Times story which, like so many others, is exploring how Kamala Harris's elevation to Democratic Party Presidential frontrunner has affected the polling. As with so many other stories, the Times article wants to include quotes from people on the street. One person they choose is someone named Anna Ayala.

This next part is the most unbelievable part. Someone recognized this name as matching a woman who, way back in 2005 filed a lawsuit against Wendy's fast food chain. Everything else that I will share is much weirder, but honestly, there are people in the world who have nearly 20-year memories for who filed which bonkers lawsuits. I find that incredible and weirdly inspiring.

Do you ever see some scumbag CEO or semi-celebrity get convicted of a crime and then vow that you will forever remember that name so that you can dole out JUSTICE if they come to you looking for a job or trying to sell you windows and siding? I do! And then 20 minutes later I forget the name. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO REMEMBER! I love this!

Chili Finger Lady

Anyway, my rural town did not have a Wendy's, and I can remember the first time my family was in a city big or important enough to have one. I got a bowl of chili and a frosty. Both of them seemed so much better than the flabburgers and gristlepatties of the usual fast food. Now that science has told us that eating chemicals, preservatives, and greasy meat is bad for us, I don't partake any longer, but I still have a weird soft spot in my heart for Wendy's.

Anna Ayala did not! She sued Wendy's for serving her a bowl of chili with a severed finger in it! She said she bit into it! Gross! She said that witnesses say her vomit the finger out of her mouth! That is an amazing detail, I think. Inspired!

Her appearance on morning television apparently cost Wendy's $21 million in sales. This is also pretty interesting. Who knew that many Wendy's customers were basing their lunch choices on morning shows? I didn't! Now, if you are like me and think that corporations are always getting away with sleazy and creepy things they never get caught for, you might be fine with a little lost sales for a fraudulent lawsuit. Over the years, Wendy's beef-peddling ways alone surely caused more than $21 million in damages to the environment, for example (see here for a jaw-dropping accounting, though it doesn't give dollar figures).

So far, then, we have the New York Times quoting some rando who ends up having caused $21 million in damages to Wendy's by saying she chewed and spewed a cooked human finger. It honestly gets better. Part of the testimony included a statement that the composition of the finger was not consistent with it having been cooked in chili for 3 hours! Oh my god, the lucky jury!! And, AS REPORTED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES in 2006 (hahahaha!) Ayala was convicted for her fraudulent claims and went to prison. When she was released, she was convicted again of another fraudulent claim. Or, as CBS News put it "Chili Finger Lady going to prison."

If you read a novel where this was the plot, you would either say "you went too far!" or you would assume you were reading vintage Eugene Ionesco, George Saunders, or Carl Hiaasen. But this all happened. And we haven't even gotten to my favorite detail.

Where did she get the finger????

Where would you get a finger? The darkweb? Breaking into a morgue? The bartering pages on Craigslist? It turns out that the finger was "paid" to settle a $50 debt owed to Ayala's husband. Yes, her husband's co-worker severed his finger on the job and somehow it just felt right to accept the finger in lieu of actual money. I really, REALLY wish I could have been part of the conversations that followed!

So, why write this article? Well, for one, it was so weird and morbidly joyful to read about this story and the additional fractal weirdnesses behind every door that I needed to share. Second, I hope it inspires at least a little (if gross) sense of wonder and awe at the unbelievable stories unfolding all around us. Do you think that any of Anna Ayala's neighbors suspected that at one point she and her husband were talking about what to do with his brand new finger? Yes, it is gruesome and fraudulent, but at least this true crime story doesn't have the same kind of victims (other than the poor guy who's finger was chopped off at work...I hope he sued his employer haha!). I think it is a kind of magic.

The Value of Science

But my first thought, once I had absorbed all the details, was "thank God for science!" This is a nerdly thought, true, but I really had this thought. You see, I give lots of talks at conferences that draw large crowds of everyone from super-empiricist scientists to people who are more guided by their spiritual senses. As a wellbeing and meaning scholar, I try to convey the exciting science of my field and provide evidence-backed guidance on how people can build the better lives they want. Routinely, I see people take the stage (usually right before or after me!) and touch an audience with an amazing story from their own life, or from people they have helped, or been helped by. I can see the transformative power of these stories. People are truly inspired Me too!

BUT, what am I supposed to do with another person's story? Of course it holds truth. But does it hold guidance? Are the ingredients for happiness, wellbeing, or meaning and purpose highlighted by the speaker actually what made a difference?

I am frequently asked to provide advice to students seeking graduate school or professorships. My path was not at all traditional, and it my own children started down the path I followed, I would freak out and assume they would waste their lives. What advice can I give? My story, even just the part about me finding my current career, is iterative, winding, nonlinear. I'm not sure I could replicate my own journey even if I could travel back in time and write spectral Post-It notes with step-by-step instructions!

What if the speaker is even less like me than back-in-time me was? What if their life circumstances were different? What if they were smarter, braver, more persistent? What if they had worse parents, more educational resources, or were beset by a maze of obstacles and risks? What is it that makes us feel that we can apply another person's story to our own lives?

I honestly don't know. In the original New York Times article , Anna Ayala from San Jose was quoted as saying she planned to switch how she voted from 2020. Her "story" was included to provide context, or to humanize the numbers, I suppose. Probably, though, it was included for the same reasons that quotes and stories are always included: to make us more interested; to insert a narrative; to 'yes, but' the data; or to make us believe the article. One effect of her quote, her story, might have been to present that advice, that it is ok to switch your vote from election to election. If that was the conclusion of a keynote speaker's talk, we'd all jot down something like "I am allowed to change my mind!" Right?

To me, this is why science is such a necessary and vital companion to stories. Stories are so much more accessible and impactful, but they also contain so much uncertainty. For every story you hear, don't you think I could find someone who would tell the mirror image story? Heck, in my own life, I could tell true stories that reach opposite conclusions about how to live. Or, more to the point of this article, now that I've told you more about Anna Ayala, what do you think about her decision to switch her vote? The New York Times re-thought it! Anna Ayala was scrubbed from their updated article.

Science is broad, aggregated, probabilistic. It is often complicated to explain and limited in how directly it can guide our lives. The state of the art can shift around, sending us in different directions or making us just throw up our hands helplessly (I'm looking at you red wine!).

But, over time, we get to actually test ideas. We get to test them over and over, with different people, under different circumstances. We get to report what we found and we get to have other people reflect on factors we may have missed, or present contrary data, limitations, all sorts of pushback. Because these views are based on data, we can all point to the same thing to make our case. And then we can test again.

We need both stories and science to make progress. I think it is vital that for every inspiring story we hear, we take the time to seek out some high quality research on the same topic. And for both, we need to engage in critical thinking and assume there is always more to learn.