Last night at painting class, one of the gals told us a little story. On Memorial Day she visited the cemetery where her mother, father and sister were buried. She worked on cleaning and weeding their grave sites and got emotional, shedding a few tears at how much she missed them.

When she went home, she opened a bag of potato chips and the first one she took out stunned her. Right smack in the center there was a hole in the shape of a cross."I took it as a sign from my family that they were all all right," said Terri.She then brought her phone out and showed us a picture of the potato chip cross. It really did look like one.That reminded me of a watermelon I bought last summer. It was one of those nice little round seedless ones. I cut it in half and there was this really cool face looking at me. I called everyone in to the kitchen to see it and they all agreed it looked just like a face. I even took pictures of it.This morning I got to thinking about Terri's potato chip cross and my watermelon face and other cool food anomalies I've seen pictures of in the newspaper, my Country Woman magazine and on the Internet.I found a site on the Internet, "Museum of Food Anomalies," with some really neat ones. I loved the humor of the descriptions. The items weren't altered in any way. Some of them were:*a jar of pickles just opened with one of the pickle slices on top having a pleasant pickle face*a potato that looks like a walrus*two Fruit Loops that looks like the planet Saturn*a lemon that looks like a marshmallow Peeps*a ginger root that looks like a lobster*a potato that looks like Mickey Mouse*a banana with the face of Jesus on itNow this next statement is no lie. As I was perusing the pictures, I started thinking about how I could really eat some gummy worms. And I swear on a stack of Bibles, the very next image was of the Dwarf Siamese Albino Gummy Bears.Get it? Gummy Worms. Gummy Bears. I took it to be a sign that I was meant to go to the store and buy Gummy Worms.Of course the website has pictures of some items that were strange looking to begin with but then the finder got creative. Like the carrot that looked like the bottom of a body with two legs and someone put a pair of Lederhose on them. A French fry that looked like a bird and the finder drew arms, legs and a hat on the plate and called it the "Walking Bird Fry." Someone found a Cheeto that looked like a person and then placed it on top of a photograph where it looks like it is standing in between a man and a woman on the beach, all holding hands.Another website, "That Looks Like ..." has pictures of things like a log that looks like a horse's head, a cloud that looks like a pig, and a man's car window that as the face of Jesus out of the condensation.So I got to thinking. If Terri found a cross in a potato chip and I found a face in my watermelon, I bet a lot of you at one time or another, found something unique either on or in a food item, grew something in your garden like an eggplant that looked like it had arms or a potato that looked like a hippopotamus. Maybe you saw something that resembled Elvis or Abraham Lincoln in your coffee mug or in a cloud.If you took a picture of your unique item/s, I'd love to see it because I'd like to do a whole page of pictures of unusual items like that for the newspaper.Maybe you have a story about your item like Terri did about her potato chip or me about the gummy worm/gummy bear and how you saw it as a sign to mean something.Send your pictures and stories to me at Linda Koehler, TIMES NEWS, PO Box 215, Palmerton, PA 18071 or email it to

lkoehler@tnonline.com. You can call me at 610-826-9641. I'm going to give this a deadline of Sept. 31, giving all you gardeners a chance to submit any weird looking produce that you might grow this year.And just to make it even more fun and exciting, I'm going to offer two prizes. One for the most naturally unique item and one for the most creative unique item, meaning if you dressed it up, drew a face on it or posed it in some artful way like the Cheeto person on the beach.I can't wait to see what you send me!