"Mom, what’s a conundrum?" my daughter asked on the way to dinner last night. How little she knew, we were all about to find out.

The large franchise pizza place was slammed and distracting. So distracting, indeed, we didn’t notice until we were halfway through our brown sugar mozzarella bread appetizer that something extra had arrived with our order.

"Look at this!" exclaimed our girl, pointing to the white plastic thingie attached to the plate. "What is it?"

Every adult at the table had a sickening moment where they imagined a thing or two it resembled. And then we realized it wasn’t quite that gross. It was a sanitary glove.

"This, my dear, is a conundrum," my husband announced. "Should we feel disgusted that this plastic sanitary glove has been left on our food? Or gratified at the proof that a glove has been used?"

As she sat puzzling over the question, I realized that in over 25 years of reviewing restaurants I had never been confronted with this particular issue. I’d encountered a used Band-Aid on the floor of a restaurant once. I’d found plenty of plastic bits in salads. Once I peeked into some greenery and looked a worm right in the eyes.

But a sanitary glove? Never. Wasn’t sure how to feel. On its face it is far from gross; sanitary gloves touch our food all the time. But this I knew: I suddenly wasn’t hungry for any more of that bread.

Then the service response. "Oh! I’m horrified!" exclaimed our waiter, who rushed off to get a manager. She came over and apologized very sincerely, offering to take it off our bill. We smiled and nodded politely, pleased at her prompt and responsible ownership of the issue.

Apparently too pleased—for when the bill arrived, there was the bread. Apparently our polite response to the manager’s apology rendered the reparation unnecessary, in her view.

Hmmm. Like I said: conundrum.