Prizes are supposed to come in boxes of cereal, not cans of green beans. And a severed mouse head isn't much of a prize, anyway.

From beaks in buckets of fried chicken to syringes in cans of cola, urban legends about tainted food are always popular. Now, Marianne Watson has a story of her own. While cooking lunch for two of her sons on Sunday afternoon, the 49-year-old Lehi woman opened and drained two cans of Allen's Cut Green Beans. When she dumped the contents into a pan, she found a mouse head sitting on top.

"Thankfully it was on top and not underneath, so it didn't actually get served to my family," she said. "I just dread what might have happened."

At first, Watson said she didn't realize what the strange object in the pan was. She just knew it was black, about an inch long and certainly not a green bean, so she took a closer look. She only needed a few seconds.

"I was just freaked out because it was so clear there was black fur. It was just so clear, and whatever it was, it was varmint," she said.

Watson took the pan to the bathroom, where she intended to flush the head and beans down the toilet. But instead she decided to call the Wal-Mart in American Fork, where she purchased the offending can on Friday.

A miscommunication with a foods manager left Watson wondering what to do with the mouse head until Monday, when she reached the store manager, she said. A representative from the Arkansas-based Allen Canning Company, which produced the green beans, called her shortly afterward.

Watson said the Allen representative told her that the now-decapitated mouse probably stuck its head up in the field as the crop of green beans was being machine harvested, losing its head but leaving the rest of the body in the field and not in another Utah family's pantry. After harvesting, the green beans go through four automated inspections and two personal inspections, then are cooked after being sealed in the can, Watson said the representative told her.

"That's why they don't think that ... the rest of the body is in a number of other cans," Watson said. "Once in a while something like this happens, (the representative) said, but it's very, extremely rare."

A representative from the Allen Canning Company did not return a message from the Daily Herald.

Wal-Mart corporate spokeswoman Jami Arms said in an e-mail that the company takes food safety seriously and is investigating the situation.

"Our store has inspected similar product on our shelves and feels confident that this complaint is an isolated incident. We have contacted the supplier and are working closely with them to look into this situation," the e-mail said.

Watson checked the shelves when she went to Wal-Mart to talk to the manager. She didn't see any cans with the same batch number as the can that contained the mouse head, but worries that other people may have inadvertently bought some. She is urging people to check to see if they have cans of Allen's Cut Green Beans with the batch number 34CG262162.

The canning company representative said the company would send Watson a check for $100. Watson said she has no plans to pursue legal action against Allen Canning or Wal-Mart, though her lawyer has advised her to keep the two other cans of beans she bought on Friday.

She also is holding onto the mouse head at the request of Wal-Mart, which must investigate the situation and file an insurance claim. A foods manager told her she could have to keep it on ice for up to two years while the company resolves the situation, she said. The block of frozen green beans, head and all, is currently in a plastic bag in a freezer in her garage.

Watson said she does not plan to stop shopping at Wal-Mart -- this could happen to pretty much any company, she said -- but the only green beans she'll be eating in the near future will be farm fresh.

"No green bean casserole this year," she said. "Green beans have been one of my personal favorite foods, but I don't think I'm going to be eating them for quite some time."

Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.