If you work in an office with a communal refrigerator, there’s a good chance that you (or someone you love) has been a victim of Lunch Theft. Those afflicted with Lunch Theft are often left feeling angry, depressed, hopeless, and even–somewhat bewilderingly–sexually aroused. But it is important for victims of Lunch Theft to remember that they are not alone. In fact, it is estimated by the Federated Association of The National Council of Meat that sixteen out of ever hundred office lunches is eaten (without permission) by someone other than the rightful owner of the lunch.
As law enforcement is little help when it comes to “some guy eating another guy’s pizza rolls”, victims of lunchcrime are left with two choices:
A. Starve to death
B. Seek revenge against those who have wronged them by spiking food with various substances and leaving it in the fridge as “bait”.
I’ll just say straight away that if you came here looking for a guide on how to starve to death, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. But if, on the other hand, you were looking strictly for information related to the poisoning of lunch-theving coworkers, I think you’ll be pleased with the list I’ve compiled here.
Disclaimer: Obviously this article is purely hypothetical, and is in no way intended as any sort of “poisoners guidebook”. And I don’t mean that in a “wink-wink nudge-nudge just covering my ass” way. This article is a ridiculous thought experiment and don’t poison your coworkers.
Thanks!
1. LSD
Most of you probably believe that gleefully lacing your own food with illegal psychedelics in the hopes of poisoning someone who may steal said food from a communal refrigerator is more than a little extreme. So do I. But that doesn’t make the idea any less amusing, so I’m just gonna go ahead and discuss it anyway.
“Oh what’s that you say? You want some of my leftover pizza? Sure. Go right ahead! But just so you’re aware, I always like to place a couple thousand micrograms of LSD on each piece. You know, for kicks. But don’t worry, if you don’t go in for that sort of thing, you don’t have to eat it.
Say again? You already took the entire box out of the fridge and ate it without my permission five minutes ago? Hoo boy. That really is a shame. Truly it is. I suppose all you can do now is get to a darkened room and hope the ensuing twelve to fourteen hour descent into nightmarish, ego-shattering psychedelic madness you’re about to experience will teach you not to eat food that doesn’t belong to you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go…promote…a file?” I guess I don’t really know what people do in offices.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: Probably Fairly Low
You probably wouldn’t do any long-term damage to someone you’ve secretly dosed with acid. Probably. Aside from some intense auditory/visual hallucinations and the soulrendingly terrifying plunge into your own subconscious, LSD likely doesn’t pose any physical danger to most people. Well, maybe no direct physical danger. One “issue” which may arise is if the guy you’ve just poisoned “freaks out”, slicing off his kneecaps with a rusty soup can lid and reluctantly devouring a portion of a small child before leaping into the path of an oncoming bus. Obviously this is unlikely to occur, but one can never be completely sure about such things.
Luckily, avoiding this sort of reaction is fairly simple: All you must do is ensure that the dose of acid the food thief receives is so high that they can do little but lie on the ground for several hours in a near-catatonic state. This will either be the most terrifyingly experience imaginable, or it’ll be so beautiful it changes their life forever. Either way, you can rest assured that your megadosed pizza roll pilferer will barely be able to comprehend their own existence, let alone hurt someone.
2. LAXATIVES
Ah yes, the laxative. Just the name brings back memories of my old college days when my dorm buddies (Drooper, Fat Randy, The Rickster, Hoofboy, Ol’ Viggy) and I would prank each other by lacing each other’s milkshakes with dangerous doses of laxatives until someone would double over, let out a bloodcurdling scream, and begin spraying large chunks of bloodied stool from his rectum before passing out due to severe dehydration at which point one of us would say “gotcha” and call an ambulance.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: Probably Low, But Then Again: What Do I Know?
It may come as some surprise to you that I’m not a doctor. As such, you should not listen to anything I say. Keeping that in mind: Heaping megadoses of laxatives into anyone’s food (thief or no), could potentially cause a whole bunch of serious problems. So unless you’re fine with the risk of being charged with the murder-by-diarrhea of that guy who kept eating your chicken club sandwich, you might want to leave your epsom salts at home.
3. BENGAY
Once, when I was a kid, I often stayed overnight at my grandmother’s house. One night, just before bed, I found that I had some pain in my shoulders, and asked her what I should take for it. She said “Oh, just put some Bengay on it, that’ll fix it right up.” Not knowing what Bengay was or how it worked, I went into the bathroom and proceeded to slather 6-10 handfuls of it all over my entire upper body. Then I went to bed. A short time later, the Bengay began to “work”, and I spent the next hour or so rolling around on the floor shrieking and clawing futilely at my sizzling skin in burn-victim agony.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: Never take advice from someone who is old.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: High?
Well, since Putting Way Too Much Bengay On Your Skin Can Apparently Kill You, I’ll go out on a limb and say that it probably isn’t safe to ingest it either. But I’ll also go out on a limb and say that if you slathered a small dollop of it on a sandwich instead of mayonnaise, the guy who takes a bite of it probably isn’t gonna want to swallow it when the inside of their mouth starts burning with the fire of a thousand red dwarfs.
4. SMALL BITS OF FRIED RODENT
This method differs slightly from the others, in that you are not “adding” the rodent to another food. The idea here is to bread and deep fry a dead rodent (mole rat, marmot, dwarf-tailed squirrel, etc) so that it resembles any other fried food. While one could certainly clean and gut the animal beforehand, this would likely ensure that the resulting food was “not very gross”, and so defeating the entire purpose of tricking someone who was trying to steal your lunch into eating a small rodent. Therefore it is recommended that you procure a dead, rotting rodent from a dumpster somewhere and fry it up with its fur, eyes, teeth, claws, and innards fully intact.
Mark my words: When a devious coworker crunches down into a juicy hunk of gristly organs, charred fur, and tiny, greyish rodent bones, they won’t be much inclined to raid the breakroom refrigerator for quite a while. Once they’re able to stifle the endless geyser of vomit which will undoubtedly begin streaming from their gaping maw, go ahead and explain what you just did to them. Most likely, they’ll shake your hand and thank you for teaching them the difference between right and wrong.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: Potentially High
Depending on how long the rodent has been dead (and what diseases it was carrying) the person who eats your fried muskrat is subject to a number of risks, up to and including:
- Being Pretty Grossed Out
- Mild Indigestion
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- E. Coli
- Botulism (Loss of Speech/Vision, Muscle Weakness, Muscle Paralysis)
- Death
In short: Use your best judgment when feeding improperly prepared dead rodents to people without their knowledge.
5. EXPLODING DYE PACK
Those of you without a well-developed thirst for vengeance might prefer to “mark” a workplace food thief for later identification, rather than causing harm to them. If this is the case, you might want to consider placing some Exploding Dye Packs (the type often used to foil bank robbers) into your lunchbag.
When the thief attempts to sneak out of the room with your bag, a small transmitter (which you have secretly placed near the breakroom’s exit) sends a signal to the dye pack when it comes into range, causing it to explode, releasing a large cloud of red smoke and a burst of red dye. This chemical reaction also causes the dye pack burn at a temperature of 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which is neat.
It should be noted that this method is far from foolproof. The pilferer must steal your entire lunch (as opposed to just taking one item from the bag), and they must also attempt to carry it out of the breakroom. It would be wise to having some sort of a backup plan in place. For example, you might spend a day or two lying in wait near the fridge, crouched behind a piece of nearby furniture with a bottle of ink clutched in your hand. That way, if the thief doesn’t take the entire bag (or fails to take it out of the room), you can leap out and manually apply the ink to their face and clothing.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: Moderate
Well, unless someone has a severe allergy to ink, not much is probably gonna go wrong on that front. I’d say the real danger here comes in the form of the 400+ degree chemical burns the victim of your revenge has the potential to sustain. I’ll let you decide for yourself how dangerous a thing like that can be.
6. PIG FETUS(S)
Alright, obviously I’m not gonna include any photos of pig fetuses on here, because hey: Pig fetuses are pretty nasty. If you really want to see what they look like, you can Click This Link. But probably don’t.
But if you’re not too grossed out and can find a pig fetus, it’d definitely be pretty simple to trick someone into eating one. All you’d have to do is put a bunch of them (they can be pretty small) them inside a sandwich with some lettuce or something, and then place the sandwich inside a paper sack in the fridge. You might want to label the sandwich bag something like “really good chicken sandwich” or something, to reduce the chances of the thief opening it up to see what’s in side. Then, when someone steals the lunch, one of three things will happen:
- They will open the sandwich before eating it, discover that it is full of pig fetuses, and vomit in disgust.
- They will bite into the sandwich, discover that it is full of pig fetuses, and vomit in disgust.
- They will bite into the sandwich, discover that it is full of pig fetuses, shrug, and eat the rest of it anyway.
As far as I’m concerned, all three of these results would be considered a success.
Risk of Death Or Serious Injury: Variable
If you were to take the time to properly cook (or at least sterilize) the fetuses before use, I’m sure they wouldn’t do much harm to anyone. But cooking them also makes them significantly less gross, which would kinda defeat the whole purpose of making a pig fetus sandwich anyway. And as for sterilizing them, I don’t even know if that’s possible. You’d really have to consult a fetus expert or something.
7. CS GAS (AKA TEAR GAS)
Just because CS GAS is most often used to subdue violent (or otherwise uncooperative) rioters and prisoners, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it on a coworker who tries to eat some yogurt without permission. Then again, it might be illegal to even own this stuff, so I’d suggest you do some research before you go around hucking canisters of it through the window of your workplace breakroom.
But if you can get your hands on it, it might be fun to spray down all your food with a bit of CS (the effects of which range from “mild tearing of the eyes to immediate vomiting and prostration”) and then wait to see if one of your coworkers gets rushed to the emergency room.
Risk Of Death Or Serious Injury: Either Low, Or Extremely High
CS is usually considered “non-lethal”, but Doubts Have Been Raised regarding its safety. So sure, it might kill a guy, cause permanent nerve damage, or alter his DNA or something, but remember: THIS PERSON TRIED TO EAT SOME OF YOUR LEFTOVER CURLY FRIES WITHOUT PERMISSION. There are those who would consider even death to be too mild a punishment for such an offense.
AND SO…
I’ve hope you’ve come away with a least a couple of good ideas for Substances With Which You Could Theoretically Poison A Coworker Who Has Been Stealing Your Food. And again, be sure and take note of the “Theoretically” in there, because if you decide it’d be funny to smear a chili-pepper stuffed dead rat with Bengay and laxatives before shoving it down your boss’s throat to punish her for eating a couple Mentos off your desk: That’s on you.
Thanks, and good luck!
