An eighth-grader who bought a bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips in a school lunch line ripped open the bag and found a dead mouse inside.

Good thing he looked before he ate, because I can't see how barbecue-flavored chips and barbecue-flavored rodent would taste much different.

The boy, apparently, was shaken up. "He was pale and lost his appetite," a spokesperson for Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, Colorado, said.

The school is pretty sure it wasn't a prank thought up by the boy.

The Frito-Lay company said it would investigate, but that it has a rigorous quality control program.

So who might have done it?

I'd applaud if it turned out to be the school nutritionist.

Finally, the discovery of an effective way to wean kids off junk food.