SHE SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HER GRILLED CHEESE — THEN IT SOLD FOR $28,000 In 1994, a Florida woman made herself a grilled cheese sandwich, took one bite—and then kept what was left for the next 10 years. Her name was Diana Duyser. She said she'd made the sandwich just as she normally did: two slices of white bread and two slices of American cheese. But after taking that first bite, she noticed what appeared to be a woman's face toasted into the bread. Duyser believed it was the Virgin Mary. So instead of finishing lunch, she placed the partially eaten sandwich in a clear plastic container with cotton balls and kept it on the table beside her bed. And there it stayed. For a decade. Even stranger, Duyser claimed the sandwich never developed mold. Then, in November 2004, she decided to put it on eBay. People noticed. Bids reportedly reached $22,000 before eBay pulled the auction, believing the listing violated its policy against joke items. Duyser insisted she wasn't joking. Once eBay was satisfied that she really intended to deliver the sandwich to the winning bidder, the listing was allowed back. That's when things got crazy. By the time the auction closed, the page had been viewed more than 1.7 million times in a single week. It attracted 27 bids and inspired more than 250 spinoff auctions. The winning bid? $28,000. The buyer was Golden Palace, an online casino known for unusual publicity purchases. Its representatives didn't even want to risk putting their new acquisition in the mail. They flew to South Florida to arrange the handoff personally. But beneath all the absurdity was a quieter part of Duyser's story. She said she had never been on a vacation. She had spent years caring for her mother and then her father, and nothing like this had ever happened for her. Two days after the auction ended, the $28,000 check was handed over—and the world's most famous grilled cheese headed off on tour. All because Diana Duyser took one bite of a grilled cheese sandwich... and decided not to take the second.