You Are What You Eat

My good friend Gary sent me the link where you can order the following item, perfect for the computer nerds in every office:

Now, normally I'd mock such goofball inventions, but admit it -- there have been times in all of our lives where it'd actually be a good idea to have something like this to discourage our rude-as-hell co-workers (and managers) from using our personal items for their own use.

Examples? Okay. Imagine coming in and finding your personal cup filled with pencils, because your pinhead boss couldn't find his own pencil holder. Yep, it happened to me once.

Or imagine having your boss' wife come in on a weekend, and having her take your coffee cup and give it to Goodwill? That one happened to the Lovely Mrs. G. a few years back.

But it's the nasty idiots who actually *use* your personal sippy cup for their sugar-filled coffee that burns my buttons. There's nothing grosser than going to get your cup and finding it's filled with moldy coffee on the inside, and covered with lipstick stains on the outside. Have you no courtesy, people?

I'm sure you all have stories like this – dealing with co-workers who wouldn't know the expression "personal boundaries" if you tattooed it on their thick skulls.

There's that person who prowls through your desk drawer at night. Or the people who 'help themselves' to your candy dish, Kleenex, office supplies, spare change, etc. because they "knew you wouldn't mind." (Wanna bet?)

Or the worst offender of them all – the lunch thief. You know you've got to be pretty damn desperate to swipe someone's lunch from the company fridge. How low can you go?

I've had my lunch ripped off more than once, but only once did I react in a way that some would call…beyond simple revenge.

It was the early 90's. I was sadly unemployed but trying to make ends meet between permanent gigs, so I was temping for an awful-as-hell trucking company in Auburn, Washington.

This place sucked. I mean, it sucked big time. Most of the people who worked there had that awful "office face" – that look that says "I've been working here far too long, but I'm too fucking dumb to ever change my situation, so I'll sit here and rot in my own misery for the rest of my long, pathetic life." Or something close to that.

Anyway, my lunch was in the fridge from 9:30 AM until my assigned lunch ½ hour at 2:00. I went to retrieve it, and lo and behold – one of those ugly bastards had polished off my Good Eats. Well, mostly. They ate my sandwich, but stuffed the crust back into the bag. They also ate my grapes, but left me the vine. My can of pop and cookies though were long gone – no evidence left behind.

So I happened to bring it up with my "supervisor" (another burnout, but this one with a nasty drinking problem to make her attitude even more enjoyable!), and she actually said, "Yeah, well, that happens." No apology, no mentioning to the other workers that maybe they should keep their meaty paws off other people's lunches, nothing.

Well, it was obvious I wasn't going to have any sort of backing from her (bitch!), so I had to take matters into my own hands.

I went home that night and prepared an extra special lunch for the next day.

It was the most beautiful sandwich you've ever seen – it would've brought tears to the eyes of Dagwood Bumstead, it was that nice.

Two slices of whole wheat bread, lettuce, Swiss cheese, mustard, mayo, you name it. I'm telling you - it was a deli masterpiece. But as fantastic as that all may sound, the "piece de resistance" was the meat inside this delectable wonder.

Say, did you know that when you spread fresh dog crap on a slice of whole wheat bread, it looks a lot like canned luncheon spread?

Yes, thanks to a black lab that had eaten far too much that afternoon, a Popsicle stick, and my own filthy quest for vengeance, a beautifully prepared Dog Shit Sandwich was now wrapped in waxed paper, waiting for the next day.

And just so you don’t' think I'm a completely horrible, disgusting so-and-so, I did put a note in the lunch sack next to the Double-Decker-Doggie-Hoagie that read "I wouldn't eat this if I were you." I mean, it's only fair that I gave the lunch thief a sporting chance, isn't it?

The next morning: My tainted sammich was in the fridge at 9:30. Now all I had to do was wait.

2:00 PM finally rolled around, and I leapt from my chair and bolted to the lunch room to see if the bait had been taken.

Sure enough, my Dog Shit Delight was gone.

The only sad part is that I never knew which of those douchebags ate it – nobody ever fessed up, and I didn't hear of anyone throwing up that afternoon. Is it possible that they actually…liked it? Hey, Mikey!

I quit that awful job a couple of weeks later – I actually told my lush supervisor where she could stick her crappy job – and never went back. Good riddance.

So keep this in mind, if you're ever dying of hunger and are instead eyeballing someone else's lunch… The sandwich before you may not necessarily be what you think it is. For cat food can look a lot like tuna salad, laxatives look like chocolate chips, and properly shaped and spread doggy poo can resemble Spam, in the hands of someone who doesn't want to share their food with you.

Trust me – hop in the car and go pick up a McBurgers. It may have about the same nutritional equivalent as a crap-on-a-bun does, but you won't regret it nearly as much every time you burp afterwards.