Dodged the (really unpleasant) bullet

I eat at Souplantation often.

Like, at least twice a week often.

I figured I'd go tonight, after work.

I pull in the parking lot, get my little ticket, and see a sign saying "Souplantation is closed."

Takes me a few minutes to circle back around to the guy in the little booth (so I can leave the parking lot) and I ask him -- as I'm sure everyone else has -- why Souplantation is closed.

"A few people got food poisoning" he says.

That's a good reason.

I followed up on the internet.  Says my local news story "at least 30 customers got sick" after eating there over a three day period in late July.  Local news adds, "the infection has been identified as shigellosis, which causes severe diarrhea."

I followed up shigellosis on wikipedia, and found this cheerful entry.  It's one of your bacterial infections which is (as they delicately put it) "transmitted via the fecal-oral route" -- which loosely translates into "which one of you morons didn't wash your hands after pooping?"  Local news says the Souplanation "voluntarily closed, pending an investigation to track down the source of the bacteria."  Ya think?