OCEANSIDE, Calif. - An Oceanside, California, woman's oatmeal order from McDonald's contained more than just raisins.
For the last 11 years, getting oatmeal at McDonald's has been a part of Cyndee Poindexter's daily routine.
"I probably spend $90 a month on oatmeal going there every morning," add Poindexter.
On Tuesday morning, she found something that was just too hard to miss.
"At first, I thought, 'What could that be in there?' And then I looked a little bit more and thought, 'How could the girl not have noticed that?'" said Poindexter.
Her daughter Kayla was just as baffled.
"You would see it fall in because you have to add the hot water," said Kayla Elaine.
She showed 10News what it was.
"It's actually pretty big, and it even says right there -- 'lift for hot water,'" added Elaine.
The red lever came from a hot water machine at the restaurant.
"And it's dirty, it's filthy. That just makes me sick," said Elaine.
"What else is falling in our food?" said Poindexter.
Poindexter immediately brought it back to the McDonalds location at the Mission Marketplace on College Boulevard.
Poindexter told 10News, "The girl said, 'Oh yeah, I was looking for that on the ground.' Oh my God. I said, 'How could you not have noticed that?'"
Poindexter said they apologized, but couldn't give an explanation.
"It just doesn't make sense," said Poindexter.
Poindexter and her daughter said they're not trying to get anything out of McDonald's. They just want people to know what they experienced.
"I just want people to take that second thought when they go through the drive-thru; open your food up and make sure," said Elaine.
"They offered me a free meal -- can you believe that?" Poindexter added.
Poindexter and her daughter said they won't be returning to any fast food restaurant for a while.
10News reached out to McDonald's corporate office for comment, and the franchisee that owns that McDonald's, Art Sandoval, emailed this statement:
"The health and safety of customers and employees is always a top priority. We place great emphasis on safety and sanitation standards to ensure we deliver great tasting, quality food to all our customers, and have apologized to Ms. Poindexter that we didn't meet those standards yesterday. We take these matters very seriously and are taking action to ensure this doesn't happen again."
