The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that a Dallas Cowboys assistant coach, Todd Haley, the receiver’s coach, has filed a suit against a McDonald's restaurant. He claims there was a rat in the salad his wife and nanny got a McDonald’s and took home to eat. Not surprisingly, the women have had trouble keeping their food down since then.

The newspaper, of course, called the franchise owner for a statement. This brings me to the reason for this post. While I recognize it is hard to have something good to say in some situations, sometimes people say really dumb things. My momma used to say “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.” That is a good rule to use in bad situations, including litigation.

However, Mr. Lobato, the franchise owner, either didn’t have my mom’s wisdom to rely on, or forgot the rules. He started off with "We haven't seen the litigation, so we can't respond to the claims". That is perfect and a good place to stop. However, he didn’t stop.

Lobato continued with "Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of our customers. We maintain the strictest quality standards."

Ok, let’s review. There is a roof rat in the salad. A roof rat is about a foot long with a tail that is also about a foot long. It is also scaly looking, which may account for the inability of the women to keep their food down even now. So, that is about two feet of rat in a salad bowl that is less than a foot in diameter. Whatever quality standards McDonald’s has, no one noticed the rat in the little salad bowl while they were putting in lettuce and carrots? What kind of quality standard is that? I smell a rat.

I’m going to send Mr. Lobato my mom’s phone number and tell him he should write down all her little sayings and abide by them. He’ll thank me, at least after he recovers from being cross examined by the plaintiff’s attorneys on his quality standards