Family Dollar Sells Woman Laxative-Spiked Coke

If we've learned anything from sitcoms, it should be that office pranks never go as planned. A soda spiked with laxatives at a Family Dollar store in Kansas City, Mo., was intended for an employee, but it accidentally wound up hospitalizing a customer who is now suing the chain.

A prankster who worked as an assistant manager at the Family Dollar was apparently sick of food going missing from the employee refrigerator, so he decided to teach the thief a lesson. According to the Huffington Post, he filled two Coke bottles with 25 laxative tablets each, resealed them, and left them in the common fridge, assuming the food stealer would drink them and learn a valuable lesson about respecting other people's property.

But the target noticed the tablets and instead of drinking or discarding them, he decided to put them in the cooler at the front of the store, where 54-year-old Barbara J. Nelson purchased one.

Nelson drank part of the coke before she noticed the tablets in the bottle, at which point she drove back to the store, where she became violently ill and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The company contacted her later with an offer.

"They called me and told me they would give me a $200 gift card," Nelson said to the Kansas City Star. "It was like we were playing The Price is Right or something."

Nelson turned down the gift card and has opted to file a lawsuit instead. Her lawyer estimates they're looking for something in the six figures.