Going out for a date should not be a horror show of creepy crawlies, but that’s exactly what one girl stumbled into when she opened her to-go container and found bugs inside. What should’ve been a chill date night turned into a crash course in entomology and one unforgettable story.
One time, TikToker Kat (@jellyroots) went on a date at a pizza place. The food was pretty good, but they didn’t finish the pizza, so they asked for to-go boxes. The server brought two to-go boxes for their table.
Kat had gotten a little drunk on the date, so her reaction to everything was delayed. When she opened one of the boxes, it was full of cockroach nymphs.
She was taking an entomology class at the time, so she didn’t freak out when she saw the insects. She just stared into it and watched the cockroaches run around.
Her date was looking at her, all confused, so she explained that the to-go box was crawling with German cockroach nymphs. Of course, his immediate reaction was to grab the box out of her lap and throw it onto the floor, which caused the cockroaches to scatter everywhere.
The server came back and asked them why the cardboard boxes were on the floor. They told him that it was contaminated with roaches.
At that point, other diners were looking in their direction to see what the commotion was about.
Kat started explaining to the server that cockroaches like to use cardboard boxes as their nesting and feeding areas because they consume the fibers and glue to survive.
Like most restaurants, this one probably stored large stacks of cardboard to-go boxes in the back, providing the ideal nesting and feeding grounds for cockroaches.
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Furthermore, Kat proceeded to describe the German cockroach life cycle in detail. In the end, they got their meal comped, so it really all worked out. Some TikTok users described their own encounters with cockroaches and other creepy-crawly bugs in the comments section.
“I used to work in a restaurant infested with roaches, and yes, they breed like crazy in cardboard. We would always find hundreds in old boxes or under the register in the receipt rolls box…it was so gross,” commented one user.
“I’m not afraid of bugs, but one time, I was visiting someone and I turned on the light in their kitchen, saw cockroaches skitter away from the food left on the table, turned the light off, and left the building. I still have flashbacks of those two seconds,” shared another.
“I worked at a pizza restaurant, and we made sure to constantly rotate the boxes on the shelves because turns out spiders liked to hide in them,” stated a third.
Finding cockroaches in your takeout box is the stuff of nightmares, but it’s also a reminder to speak up when something’s not right. Kat handled it with more calm than most people would!
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
