A traveler in Iceland recently shared a misfortunate experience in a local restaurant on TikTok, in which she mistook a bottle of hand sanitizer for vinegar. She had already put the liquid all over her fries.
While it may surprise those who haven’t been to the country, Iceland has a thriving fast-food culture.
Visitors to the island may be taken aback by just how fully the country has embraced certain items like hot dogs. In fact, the dish is so popular that Reykjavík’s most famous hot dog stand, Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, can have lines that extend well into the street that surrounds it.
Of course, when one orders a hot dog, they may also want a side of french fries. While french fries can come with a variety of sauces depending on where you are, in Iceland, they do not come with vinegar, as TikTok user Megan (@megan_fuller) recently learned.
Megan is a Canadian who was traveling through Iceland. After eight days of a “very sleep-deprived road trip” around the country, she decided to stop off for french fries. Settling down and seeing a bottle of unmarked liquid on the table, she poured some onto her fries assuming it was vinegar, which she says is “pretty common in my part of Canada.”
The liquid was, in fact, hand sanitizer.
@megan_fuller Almost didnt post this bc I look absolutely horrendous but am I actually that dumb or should chemicals next to condiments maybe be labeled?
♬ original sound – megan 🗺
The video posted by Megan shows her laughing after realizing her mistake.
“I wonder if I can eat the bottom ones,” she says, removing several fries from the bottom of the bag. After trying a fry, she says, “it’s okay.”
Commenters were quick to say that the hand sanitizer bottle should have been labeled as such.
“It’s right next to the ketchup and not labeled. I’d have thought the same thing,” wrote a user. “Who groups hand san with the CONDIMENTS!?”
“Honestly, I would have thought it was vinegar too,” added another.
“Definitely not your fault! It’s a law in most places to have that bottle clearly labeled with what it contains,” offered a third.
“I would have brought it back and asked for new fries. Isn’t your fault if it wasn’t labeled,” shared a further TikToker.
Megan appears to be in good spirits about the ordeal, writing in response to the above comment, “I don’t think I deserved new ones.”
That said, some questioned how Megan could have made such a mistake given the ubiquity of similar hand sanitizer bottles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s scary the amount of people in the comments that say they’d make the same mistake,” stated a user.
“LOL in what world are restaurants putting giant bottles of vinegar with HAND PUMPS on the table,” questioned a second.
The Daily Dot reached out to Megan via Instagram direct message.
