Every day millions of parents send their children off to school, often worrying about what their child will encounter during the school day. Typical worries include violence, harassment, drugs, etc. But for one Colorado eighth-grader, the unthinkable happened Wednesday as he found a dead mouse in his school-bought lunch!

The mouse was apparently discovered in a bag of Frito-Lay barbecue potato chips the student had purchased from his school. Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo. (NYSE: PEP), said it is having the suspected bag of chips sent to corporate headquarters for inspection.

The boy is a student at Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, about 40 miles south of Denver. While Frito-Lay officials have still not come straight out and admitted there was indeed a mouse in the boy's lunch, this definitely does not appear to be a prank. Sure, kids like to play jokes, but since the boy was eating with his parents and several other students who back up the story, this seems like the real thing.

Hopefully Frito-Lay will be able to figure out just how this mouse did wind up in the child's lunch and take whatever steps are needed to ensure that this does not repeat itself. After all, parents have enough to worry about when sending their kids off to school -- finding mice in their lunch is a worry everyone can do without.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.