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Last weekend our family celebrated my granddaughter's 3rd birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. Elizabeth had talked about her birthday for months, showing us 3 fingers when asked how old she'd be. On party day, she wore a new plaid skirt, soft sweater, tights, and her favorite black boots. Her blonde hair, clipped back, accentuated her dancing blue eyes and a smile that never left her face. My husband and I thought she'd pop with joy!

The party was great fun. Her little sister, cousins and adult members of the family played games, rode rides, and ate pizza. Elizabeth loved it all. She spent the most time climbing up the sky tube with her 4-year old cousin and giggling all the way back down. She opened lots of presents and blew out all 3 candles on her cake-twice!

The festivities seemed perfect until the next day, when 10 out of 12 people from her party developed severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting that lasted all night and well into the next morning. Nausea lingered for a couple more days.

A son-in-law and I were the only 2 spared. What did we have in common? I couldn't eat anything at Chuck E. Cheese because of food allergies. He arrived late and ordered a Buffalo Chicken pizza. Neither of us ate pepperoni pizza.

I called the Health Department on Monday and made a report. The next day I called the manager at Chuck E. Cheese. I told her about my family and inquired about the company's food safety standards. She said her workers are very careful when handling food and that every ingredient is frozen when put on the pizza. She also said that the health department inspected, due to my report, and found no violations. I didn't dispute what she said, but reminded her that something happened to make my family so sick. She said it must've been the stomach virus that's currently going around town.

I considered that possibility. It's unlikely that 10 people would all get a stomach virus at exactly the same time. I asked her, anyway, about how often the rides and games are sanitized.

"We clean everything at night but the sky tubes," she said. "The sky tubes are cleaned once a week." She also said that it's not their fault if kids bring germs into the store after a cleaning. She showed no concern for my family.

One of my daughters had to see a doctor, because she thought her symptoms were more severe than the usual stomach virus. Her blood work revealed a bacterial infection. The doctor said she couldn't say for certain that the bacteria are the result of food poisoning, but

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