Who wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, “What kind of ploy can I pull on a restaurant today?”

It seems Anna Ayala did just that on March 22, according to the police who arrested her outside of her Las Vegas home last week. She’s been charged with attempted grand larceny.

What did she do? She claims to have found a finger in her chili at a San Jose Wendy’s.

For a few seconds, people believed her. They felt sickened and sorry for Ayala. And right away, police and Wendy’s started an investigation into where the fingertip might have come from – but they turned up nothing.

And soon, police investigators said they realized the well-manicured digit didn’t even look as though it had been cooked in a vat of chili for three hours.

During this investigation, Ayala and her lawyer had filed a claim against Wendy’s, which she subsequently dropped when police searched her home and continued questioning her family. It was just too stressful, she said.

The truth was catching up to her, and she was getting scared.

She has a litigious past, according to The Associated Press. She filed a claim in February 2004 against El Pollo Loco in the Las Vegas area stating her daughter got sick after eating at the restaurant. She said she was paid $30,000; El Pollo Loco said she was paid nothing.

Does Ayala play this game often?

Well, at the same time she was arrested and charged for the finger incident, she was served another charge – grand theft – for a real-estate deal gone bad, it seems she may. She allegedly swindled a woman out of $11,000 just before moving to Las Vegas.

Apparently, the San Jose finger story was just another get-rich-quick scheme – only it backfired. The police certainly think it’s a hoax, and why shouldn’t they? Her past does nothing to help her credibility in this case.

When Ayala gets out of custody, she had better look into some cookbooks because it wouldn’t be surprising if restaurants placed on their “No Shirts, No Shoes” signs a picture of her next to “No Service.”

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