Juicy Arachnids

A few nights ago, nearly a week prior to today, I dragged my weary self into the kitchen for a late-night glass of Five Alive before heading off to bed.
Little did I expect that there would be an uninvited guest to this party.

Upon pouring my drink I noticed that something had left the carton with the beverage, but at first thought it was a small glob of un-mixed juice and left it at that. It wasn't until this foreign object floated to the top that I got a sense of what it really was.

"Is that...? No, it can't be."

So I fished it out.
It was.
A spider. A common house spider, but a spider nonetheless.
I fished it out with a spoon, dropped it in the sink, and poured my drink down the drain.

A few days later I decided that I needed to inform the good makers of Five Alive of this incident. Not to complain or shout via internet, demanding free whatnots, but rather just to inform them of what I found in my juice carton.
So off I went to the Minute Maid website to frustratingly navigate through their poorly designed tom-foolery just to find a contact link.
Eventually I found the complaints form, and while I wouldn't consider it a complaint, I filled it out in full, informing them of exactly what had happened.
Much to my dismay, however, once I went to submit the form I was told that being a Canadian citizen, my complaints and/or concerns were to be directed to them by way of their toll free number.
Now, I already felt like the thumb-in-the-chili lady for writing the letter, so I didn't want to make the call and have to have this conversation with a live human being.
Call me timid but it just wasn't on my list of things to do.
So I changed my postal code to my friend's zip code in NY, but also made note of this in my now revised letter.

The very next day, after the initial Thanks for your concern auto-email, I received a reply from Minute Maid. Much to my shock it was not another auto-response, but rather something that seemed to have come from an actual human being.
Now, whether or not this email was as scripted as any auto-response I don't know, but so far it seems as though Minute Maid is on top of their game.

"Thank you for contacting The Minute Maid Company. We appreciate your taking the time to make us aware of your experience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
We are very interested in this unusual situation and would like to obtain additional information, so we can provide a complete report to the appropriate management. We would like to request the following:

• Your address and daytime telephone number;
• The date you purchased the product and the date the incident occurred;
• The name, street address, and city of the store where you purchased the product;
• The number of ounces contained in the package and the type of packaging (for example, 64-oz. carton) and the multi-pack size (6-pack, 10-pack or individual);
• The complete best if used by date typically located near the top of the package.

Please feel free to reply directly to this message with the information and you should expect a response soon. We do ask that you hold on to the packaging until you hear from our representative.

Please include the following reference number in the subject line: 1-**********
We appreciate your cooperation and look forward to hearing from you again.

C********
Industry and Consumer Affairs
The Minute Maid Company"

I responded to their email and provided all of the information they requested. The part about keeping the carton seems odd to me, since I can't think of any reason for doing so, but I'm agreeable and will do what they suggest is best.
My original message to them was,

"This past Saturday on March 16 I poured myself a glass of Mango Citrus Five Alive, only to watch a spider slide out of the opening and into my juice glass. Not sure that it was in fact a spider, I fished it out to take a better look.

Well I was right. It was not a spectacular spider - nothing more than the common house spider - but I was a tad concerned.

I've since disposed of the arachnid, and as well I promptly disposed of my beverage, along with the remaining contents of the carton.

Surely it was no ones intention that a spider make its way into my juice, and quality control must be a very serious matter for your company, but I felt it was important to bring this to attention.

Do with this information whatever you feel necessary."

I didn't ask them for compensation of any kind, nor do I expect any, and I'm interested to see how they treat a situation like this.
So far I'm impressed with their speedy response, as I originally expected to never hear from them, or rather get an awkward unexpected call from them like I did from Kraft when I emailed them to ask about the shelf-life of Pop Tarts.
That was related to the fact that I had intended to buy a box of Hello Kitty Pop Tarts to add to my collection of useless HK what-have-yous, and was none too keen on the notion of having rotting toaster pastries in my house.
Needless to say I felt like the biggest dork on the planet when I explained this to the Kraft representative on the other end.
But I digress.

Updates will follow once I hear back from Minute Maid.
In the meantime I've not been deterred from drinking the sweet goodness of Mango-Citrus Five Alive.