Saw this mystery novella from @zaktoscani on Twitter just now:
Co-worker got his lunch stolen and they’ve agreed to let him watch the security camera tape. This is the most excited I’ve ever been at any job ever. Ever.
The lunch in question was shrimp fried rice which means this escalates from a misdemeanor to felony no doubt
Case facts:
Lunch was in fridge for less than an hour before it vanished. No shrimp smell remnants in the microwave or kitchen area. This was a professional hit no doubtHOLY SHIT. He’s back. He watched the tape. He knows who did it.
So the man who’s lunch was stolen sits across from me. The person who stole his lunch sits RIGHT NEXT TO ME! She left for the day before the investigation started
According to the video, this psychopath DIDNT EVEN EAT THE FOOD. She took it out of the fridge and threw and buried it in the trash
Her motives remain completely unknown. In lieu of what he saw on the tape he has decided to not to press the matter anymore. I can’t say I blame him. We don’t know what this women’s fully capable of
Points to clarify: he bought the shrimp fried rice around 11:30am (carry out) and put it in the fridge to chill until he takes lunch at noon. So she had exactly a 30min window of time to do what she did. There was no intention of microwaving the food
Update: Ok so when dude watched the video with HR they asked “what do you want to do about it?” he told them he was solely interested in who did it and that he didn’t want to be responsible for someone getting fired
After charges were dropped, HR sent a company wide email about not stealing people’s lunches. She is scheduled to arrive at work in 20min. My blood is on cocaine
She has walked into the room. And the room is dead silent. Dead fucking silent yet there is a palpable explosive energy pulsing through everyone but her
From the moment she walked in, I’ve just been staring at her. Watched her open her email and now she clicked on the goddamn HR email! Holy fuck strap in – here we go!
I can’t move. I simply cannot move, anything could happen right now
!!!! After seeing the HR email she says out loud “woah. Someone stole a lunch? Who would do something like that?” !!! I may have to run out of this room
After she said that, shrimp guy responds “well yea it’s not ok to throw someone’s food away” we’re all about to start screaming
This shits about to get crazier. After he says that she goes “oh it was your lunch?” BEAT she continues “well why would you go to HR about that?!”
She has simultaneously denied her involvement AND called the guy who saved her job a snitch!!!!!!!!!
Dude just sighed and went back to work after she said what she said. She looks frightwningly calm
I’ll keep updating if anything else occurs but all I can say is that EVERYONE in the office from the janitor to the founder knows what she did. She now carries an invisible scarlet letter
So many questions. This account says shrimp guy put the takeout in the fridge to chill it for half an hour before eating it. Is that a thing? Sounds weird to me, but okay.
I think the perpetrator either thought the victim was going to microwave a seafood dish and did the crime to preempt that, or else the container was stinking up the fridge and she tossed it in anger.
The last place I worked before I escaped the cube farm had a serial wastebasket shitter! Someone would crap into random trashcans. Not the big, covered trashcans in the break rooms — the little short wastebaskets in cubes and common areas. Now THAT was a psychopath! They never caught the perpetrator, as far as I know.
Open thread!
efgoldman
In Florida, of course
JanieM
Pet peeve: In light of…….
Sheesh.
ETA tried to add a strikethrough “lieu” in front of bolded “strong” but it didn’t work. “In lieu of” means “In place of” is the grammar nerd’s point.
RSA
What a story!
The writer should look up fancy words.
ETA: Damn it, JanieM! :-)
efgoldman
@RSA:
The writer is Betty. She knows good all the werdz.
Usually the pedants don’t come out until after dark.
raven
In “After the Deluge” Doug Brinkley recounts that people shit on desks if post-Katrin offices.
JanieM
And one of my first introductions to college life was someone(s) eating an entire cheesecake that I had made (from a box) and stored in the dorm floor’s fridge for a next-day gathering. Lotsa people could have done that one…I never found out who it was, timid freshperson that I was. Twits.
Mary G
Ew, pooping wastebaskets is some passive aggressive shit.
My only experience was when one secretary pulled a gun on another after a morning spent discussing whether one’s boyfriend was a cheater or not. I was walking back to my cell and took cover behind a concrete pillar, while everybody else hit the ground, because they were both crazy. Our manager, in a brave, but stupid, move, flew out of his cubby and put himself between them. He was a kindly, soft spoken person, and he yelled at them so loud they were startled out of their feud. No one was hurt and they were both fired.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
No, the writer is somebody Betty is quoting from Twitter.
ETA: Though the whole story is an example of why a well operating office would let everyone have a mini-fridge at their desk.
donnah
That’s hilarious! I would love to work with that writer because he’s a hoot and a half.
Too bad about the lost meal, but I’m guessing it was smelly. She still shouldn’t have pitched it. We all know her type…
JanieM
Wait, unless I have completely lost it (a distinct possibility), the writer of “in lieu of” was some twitter character named Zak Toscani.
JustRuss
Thanks for sharing that. I wonder how long the perp will be wondering why everyone at work is giving her the side-eye before somebody clues her in.
germy
Speaking of poop…
My wife stepped in some dog poop that was left on the sidewalk in front of our house. She had to hose off her sneakers. There are a million dog walkers who traverse our neighborhood. Most of them are what you would call fine people I suppose. Most of them bag up the poop. Some of them drop the bagged poop in our trash cans. I’m sure they think there’s nothing wrong with dropping their bags of dog poop in other people’s trash. Why they can’t put it in their own trash is a mystery to me.
What happens is, the trash collectors come, dump the garbage into the trucks, the little poop bag gets left behind in my trash can, and then it stinks in the summer and fills with maggots. How did your dog’s poop become part of my life? We have an indoor cat.
Early this morning I took a walk to our grocery store. On the way back I passed a small playground. It’s a beautiful thing (the city installed all new rides last year) perfect for toddlers and young children. Monkeybars, swingsets, slides. Even a small fountain in the summer for kids to run in. A sandbox.
There’s a fence around it and a sign: NO DOGS.
Of course this sign is ignored. In the winter I see human footprints with dog prints next to them. Last summer I saw a woman walking through the playground with her dog, off leash.
This morning, I saw the sign vandalized. Someone had smeared dogshit on the word “NO” and then wrote “YES” next to the word “DOGS”. Seems like a rather psychotic thing to do.
I thought it would be nice to have at least one public space where kids could play without worrying about stepping in dog poop, but I guess I was being naive.
trollhattan
In college I had a steel mill jerb and took a sack lunch, stored in the nasty fridge in the nasty break room. Said lunch was sometimes raided–not gone but shopped and the good stuff eaten. I started stapling the bag closed and one day found the bag opened and a cigarette ground out in the unwanted food items. I’d tell the floor boss of the day when it and would get a shrug in response.
It wasn’t poverty–those were very good paying jerbs–it was an asshole.
mart
Love that story. We had a known serial fridge food thief who would scarf down the food he stole. We brought back leftover pizza and spit and did other nasty thing under the cheese; put it in the fridge, and watched in glee and disgust as he stole and ate it.
Gin & Tonic
I can’t trust someone who confuses “in lieu of” and “in light of.”
JanieM
@Gin & Tonic: Amen. ;-)
Mandalay
Another one bites the dust...
JimV
“This account says shrimp guy put the takeout in the fridge to chill it for half an hour before eating it. Is that a thing?”
Yeah, let’s shame the victim. He was asking for it.
raven
@germy: the horror
Steeplejack (phone)
@JanieM:
<s>lieu</s> =lieuBetty Cracker
@trollhattan: Damn! I’d have been tempted to put a mousetrap in the bag. But I suppose that would have escalated things to dangerous levels…
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Yeesh!
Taught at a school for the developmentally disabled and one day encountered one student braining another, much smaller older student with a broom handle. Not typically a yeller I yelled so loudly it startled him enough to drop the broom and skedaddle. Definitely preferable to wading in and trying to pull them apart.
Because the broom guy’s dad was president of the board of directors it was all glossed over as “being off his meds” or somesuch.
RIc Drywall
Guy eats lunch at noon? Isn’t that like eating dinner at 5:30 pm?
MattF
Well, y’know, chilling a rice dish and then reheating it could improve the texture of the rice. Sounds weird, I know, but fried rice is actually better if the rice is day-old and chilled overnight.
ETA: That is, day-old and chilled -before- frying it.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
I did try baiting via ExLax sandwich with no success. Had I been back at college my pharmacy student friends could have been very helpful in that regard, but all I had were my revenge fantasies. Today I’d use Dave’s Insanity Sauce and keep an eye on the water fountain.
Kelly
@germy: Years ago I lived across the street from a little old lady that went to the local public park almost daily to pick up trash and scoop poop. She said children should be able to play there and she need to get out for a walk. Kept it up until she was 90. One of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known
trollhattan
@MattF:
Read about that. Evidently the starch undergoes a change by reforming cooling after cooking, which is one reason to not stir fry with freshly cooked rice.
efgoldman
@Betty Cracker:
Years ago, a woman where i worked labelled all her stuff in he fridge “medicated”. Don’t know if it worked. I went out for lunch
Mnemosyne
I would bet that the perpetrator was your boss, or one of his favorites. That’s usually how these things end up going unsolved.
raven
GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) – At least 12 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
That is so great.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Back from Iowa City and Mr DAW’s appointment. The growth is probably a cyst. Do another scan in 6 months to see if it’s grown. That’s it. Which is good news.
Hoodie
@germy: I’m a dog owner and I hate that. I also don’t appreciate dog owners who walk their dogs in public areas without leashes. My dog is a rescue who gets nervous and defensive when other dogs run up to her unrestrained. I’m sure that their mutts are friendly and wonderful, but she doesn’t know that. For that matter, I don’t know that. I love dogs, but they’re unpredictable animals.
trollhattan
@raven:
Bibi is such a mensch.
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Excellent, what a nice Easter gift!
The Dangerman
Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
Fried rice originated as something thrown together from yesterday’s leftovers, so this very much in the spirit of the original dish.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Maybe this means, in lieu and/or in light of the holidays, they’ll be taking the weekend off. //
Mnemosyne
Speaking of outing people, in case anyone was unaware, “new” commenter Washburn is actually old troll Amarinthine RBG (ARBG) under a new name. He fled after his gun-hugging was no longer acceptable in the wake of Parkland and came back as a new troll.
Mock at will.
Aleta
I do like that writer.
Was it a Monday? Maybe she regularly throws away leftovers that sat over the weekend, and acted on autopilot. Though that excuse seems fishy based on the time stamps.
debbie
@raven:
Glad I’m skipping Seder this year. The rancorous outrage over Palestinian intransigence would have forced me to throw the shank bone at someone.
Just one more canuck
@Betty Cracker: make a normal lunch and then soak it in hot sauce
Note to self – read all the comments first
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Great news!
Aleta
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Betty Cracker: A mousetrap in the waste basket might have been entertaining though.
MobiusKlein
@germy: I have dumped street trash in available trash cans. I figure either the trash folks managed to leak some trash out, or that the resident would prefer trash not being on the ground in front of their house anyway.
For poop, could be some jerk dog owner left the gift in a bag, and some other person dumped it into the nearest can.
Germy
I wonder if there’ll be a late Friday news dump today.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@trollhattan: @debbie: Thank you. And just as a by the way, the specialist and the resident were both immigrants. This was at the University of Iowa hospital. I can’t imagine what cutting immigration would do to the health care system in the US>
No Drought No More
It’s an episode from The Larry David show.
I once worked for a company that installed a camera mere feet above the time clock, on which it was trained to stop employees from punching any cards but their own. Nevertheless, within weeks or months a guy was canned for doing just that. That’s the nearest experience to this soap opera that I ever saw play out.
Surely Larry David would brazen it out if caught red handed like that woman. He might claim he was so mortally allergic to shrimp, the way some people are to peanuts or bee stings, that he absolutely no choice; that he had fully intended to explain as much to Mr. Nowshrimplez and reimburse him; but before he had a chance, he was instead publicly humiliated. Furthermore, that Human Resources might have a bigger problem on their hands than a tossed lunch; and lastly, that he suddenly didn’t feel well, and so was leaving early, and would see them all tomorrow. Maybe.
El Caganer
In re waste-basket assailant: did he/she/it leave a warning “Shit’s about to get real?”
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: My wife sometimes brought home plastic bags with the “biohazard” markings. Great for packing a lunch. Although the kids didn’t think it was as funny as we did.
Betty Cracker
@Hoodie: I got in a shouting match the other day with some asshole who had his unleashed dog in his unfenced yard and let it cross the street to confront my dog. Jesus, people are idiots sometimes!
dmsilev
Someone must sell lunchboxes with locks built in. If not, there’s definitely a market niche that needs filling.
HeleninEire
I swear to the Goddess this is one of the best posts I’ve ever read here. I have worked in offices and behind a desk for 35 years. The whole we are bored silly so we create our own drama is so so so true. Also, too, stop stealing other people’s lunch, BITCH!!!!!
ETA: And it is true in every single office. Additionally, I can report with confidence that it is true ACROSS THE WORLD!!!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Good news indeed! The bridge world must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Aleta
@MattF: Drying out overnight might let the outside of the grains absorb more garlic- or onion- flavored oil. So crisper and more taste?
catclub
@Mary G:
well, yes.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Nope. It was the twitterer, zaktoscani.
CAinCA
@Just one more canuck: There’s a website called Ask a Manager, which has a lot of funny and strange office situations, including one of the best stolen lunch stories I’ve ever read.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): That is very good news!
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
It’s the same reason you’re supposed to use day old (or older) bread when making french toast or bread pudding. It turns out this reaction is an unusual one because it happens faster in the refrigerator than at room temperature, which is why you aren’t supposed to put bread in the fridge. Freezing, though, will stop the reaction, so bread (or rice) you want to keep for a while should be stored frozen.
condorcet runner-up
Betty, I think we may have a new lead on your “phantom shitter” case.
Major Major Major Major
That story is crazy!
smintheus
Dorm fridge thief once was exposed by liberal application of Metamucil to a half gallon of ice cream.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: The cocaine blood is a nice touch.
WereBear
Timesink warning. Office shenanigans.
All you need is AskaManager.org
Aleta
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Great news.
@Roger Moore: Interesting. Does the starch change make the rice fry differently?
I think some rice puddings and bread pudding also call for older rice and bread.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Carry a hatchet on your belt, and stand your ground.
Brachiator
We get so busy in the office that people forget it’s also the holidays. I had to remind a co-worker that today is Good Friday and also the first day of Passover. Easter Sunday is also April Fool’s Day. The first Easter was an April Fool’s Day.
“Hey, Jesus ain’t in the tomb!. Ha, ha, April Fool! Wait…What?”
We once had a guy complain about a food thief, guy ate his favorite peanut butter sandwich. The guy made a big deal about it, sent an email blast to everyone. He had been jonesing for that sandwich and was bitterly disappointed to find someone ate it, with no mercy. he promised hellfire retribution if he ever caught the sandwich thief.
He got home and found his sandwich in a bag on a kitchen counter.
Major Major Major Major
I would never trust that woman again.
As for why you might want to refrigerate and reheat a dish rather than leave it out for 30+ minutes, is that not obvious? Room temperature is where bacteria thrives. And reheating shrimp isn’t that bad, it’s not fish.
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): yay!
Mike in DC
Stephon Clark case just got a lot worse. Family hired Bennet Omalu, the guy who discovered CTE in NFL players, to perform an autopsy. 8 bullet wounds, all to the back or side. No frontal entry wounds. “His back was to the officers the entire time.”
germy
@Brachiator:
So not only did the thief steal his sandwich, he broke into his house.
Fiendish.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Oh, thank God. Keeping good thoughts.
Gelfling 545
@Mandalay: Too soon to hope that her style of invective disguised (poorly) as analysis has passed its prime?
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
That was my thought, it was for sanitary reasons. I don’t leave my lunch out of the refrigerator all morning.
germy
@Gelfling 545: Laura’s listeners will be hearing a lot of public service commercials.
ruemara
Smelly or not, it wasn’t that bitch’s business. Surprised at some of y’all. I’d have demanded she buy my fucking lunch & that she be disciplined. Doing nothing but be passive? Utter wtf. I’ve chewed out respected office holders for stealing my coffee, so you better believe a wench doing that would get her due. Stinky? Suck it up! It’s not your food and if it bugs you so much politely say it’s too much scent, please eat it not at your desk or go fucking buy them food.
different-church-lady
I’m thinking maybe this use of billions of dollars of technology to entertain each other with the trivial events of our lives may have finally gone too far.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: good to know. Are you sure?
Mandalay
@Mandalay:
And another one gone, and another one gone….
Office Depot will no longer advertise on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, the office supply chain said Friday.
Weight loss and nutrition company Jenny Craig said Friday it would stop advertising on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show.
They’re dropping like flies! Is it too soon to start thinking Ingraham’s job might be on the line?
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@zhena gogolia: That was pretty much my exact reaction.
Thanks to all jackals for the good wishes. This is one place where thoughts and/or prayers seem appropriate or in any case welcome.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Excellent news. Ever hear of an Iowa Picnic? Folk out here in SoCal who had relocated here from Iowa used to get together and have “Iowa Picnics” back in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Brachiator
@condorcet runner-up:
The Phantom Shitter was also a discarded Star Wars movie title.
efgoldman
@Spanky:
Next to the onion?
mart
@Roger Moore: Learned from a cookbook to spread out and fully cool fresh cooked rice in the freezer while I chopped the veggies. This avoided the mushy blob of rice style stir fry, nice flaky rice instead. Seems to work well without the overnight thing.
Baud
If only Mueller had security tapes he could watch….
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Heh, outing leftovers.
MoxieM
Oh God I worked at a small consulting shop about 400 years ago. There was a young woman who would weigh and measure her daily portion of mackerel (I think) and potatoes, and then nuke it. Holy shit that was some nasty smelling shit.
She came from an impoverished background and I just don’t think she knew better. Someone may have taken her aside and explained the error of her lunch ways. I hope they were kind.
Feel like I can still smell it though. Yech. Small office, humongous stink.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
A quick search finds that such things do exist- they mostly have a place to put a padlock rather than a lock built in- but they’re surprisingly uncommon.
Gelfling 545
@ruemara: Seriously, she stole the guy’s lunch. She should at least have had to reimburse him.
danielx
One of so many reasons I am happy not to work in that environment…
smintheus
@Mandalay: It’s interesting to note that giving a Nazi salute at the Republican National Convention is not sufficient to get you fired at Fox, but losing advertisers definitely is.
catclub
@Mandalay: I think they will all drop off her program for a few weeks then return after all the buzz dies down. FOX is where the marks are. Meanwhile, they are probably just shifting to some other FOX program.
efgoldman
@Gelfling 545:
I think she’ll go the way of Rush Asshole: An ever-decreasing roster of stations, of lower and lower power, until only a few devoted flying monkeys can get her on a good day.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Good to hear! Best wishes to you both!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Who says he doesn’t, “Deep State” my friend.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Wooo hoo! Great news.
MoxieM
@germy: I used to live on a main street. I had a flower bed out front. I also had 2 newfies, so I was, myself, used to scooping vast quantities of dog output, and kind of sensitive to the idea of other dog owners Not doing that. (250 lbs of dog makes a large amount of poop, daily.)
But the bit that really killed me was if I was weeding in my little flower bed, and some meathead would walk by with their dog/s and let them take a leak and or a dump in the flower bed I was working in. Not cool. Not cool at all.
Then, I wished I had Tibetan Mastiffs or Akitas or some dogs that would bite the hoomans.
Aleta
@Mandalay: Amazing.
It’s staggering, the effects.
germy
@MoxieM: I don’t blame dogs, I blame dumb owners. The dogs deserve better owners.
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
No. It’s Fox News. The news management obviously gave hosts the high sign to go after the Parkland students. They thought that they could get away with it, like they usually do. This time, they got bit in the ass.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: RULE 34!!! GREEN BALLOONS, RULE 34!!!
efgoldman
@MoxieM:
When I first did overnite radio (late 70s) we shared the building with an AM station. The AM engineer used to get a double-garlic pizza. Every nite. All the studios shared a common ventilation system. Some nights the smell cleared in 24 hours. Sometimes…..
It didn’t help that he and his friends used to smoke weed, too.
Gelfling 545
So the ankle brace will continue. Orthopaedic doctor believes it’s a stress fracture. MRI next week to look for any tendon damage etc. Did I mention that I’m so claustrophobic that just covering my eyes can put me in a panic? All the good fun!
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@BillinGlendaleCA: I never heard of that. We’re not Iowa natives. Maybe it’s a secret picnic that outsiders aren’t supposed to know about.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
I fail to see the problem here.
Roger Moore
@Aleta:
It makes it firmer, so it is mechanically better at standing up to being fried. It’s the same thing with stale bread for french toast; fresh bread is more likely to fall apart when you soak it.
One of the things that many people don’t know is that bread turning stale is not because it dries out; it can go stale even in a sealed container. It happens because the starch recrystalizes and squeezes some of the water out of its matrix. If you heat a stale starch (old bread or rice), it will partly reverse the reaction by making the starch granules re-absorb some of the water that got squeezed out, but it can’t reverse it completely.
As an example, this is why you heat tortillas before making tacos with them. Tortillas in the bag are stale and will tear if you try folding them. When you heat them up, it reverses the staling reaction and makes them soft and flexible again.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: The only thing that’s surprising me about this that our culture still has a bridge that’s too far for even the deplorables to cross.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I would love a “That bitch set me up!” moment.
rikyrah
Just thought I’d share this commentary I found on another blog.
different-church-lady
Sociopaths: 40% of the population at a safe guess. Discuss.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: REPUBLICANS: “HOW’S PRESIDENT HILLARY DOING? HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA…. WEEZE… CHOKE…”
StringOnAStick
I’m home nursing an intense cold after yesterday being our best powder back country ski day of the year. I really wanted to go again today, but there was no way. Instead I have two 6 month old kittens on my lap, so a pretty good day anyway.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack (phone): FYWP doesn’t like [some] stacked tags.
italic – italic
bold – bold
bold-italic – bold-italic
bold-strike –
bold-strikebold-underline – bold-underline
etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
Off topic. The squirrel is making a lot of noise chewing a hole in the eave above the master bedroom (I am having a rest hour before the final rush of Passover).
I have called the critter catchers, again, and am waiting to hear back from them. They are a hapless pair. Everywhere they put a trap, the squirrel avoids for ever after.
When this started a month ago, I thought they would go after the squirrel, maybe with a net. But all they do is put up traps with bait even this nursing mother squirrel isn’t interested in. They don’t even go into the attic.
I am beginning to think this is a lost cause, at least until the babies grow up and leave.
Back on topic, we know exactly who is stealing Ohio Dad’s yogurts from the work refrigerator, it is the loudest wing nut. The yogurts are always where OD left them when Wing Nut is off for the day.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA:
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Never heard of such a thing. I was wondering, what was special about it? Did Iowans dance around a maypole or something? And so, I found this:
Thanks for sparking my interest in this tidbit of California history.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
They took pictures, so they were really bad at hiding it.
Roger Moore
@CAinCA:
The follow-up to that story is even better. For those who won’t check, the person whose spicy lunch made their coworker sick was fired. They threatened to sue and were promptly hired back with a substantial raise. It sounds as if the coworker who ate the spicy food was romantically involved with the HR person who fired the story teller, and both of them were fired when the owner got the whole story.
p.a.
We had a 2 man team of lunch thieves (just didn’t get that it wasn’t funny). They were found out. One of their victims was a good artist. Didn’t go to the company (union brothers after all), just graffitied company facilities with drawings of their faces on pig bodies, with crumbs flying everywhere.
PaulWartenberg
@efgoldman:
Are you accusing a Floridian of being a wastebasket shitter?
You can’t even prove I was in the same county! YOU CAN’T PROVE THAT! I GOT WITNESSES. I GOT AN ALIBI! STOP LOOKING AT ME.
BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Obviously “Fake News”.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: an “Iowa Picnic” sounds like an event the mafia euphemistically throws somebody.
different-church-lady
[looks up “Iowa Picnic” on Urban Dictionary…]
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: If you want obscure LA history, This is the thread for you. Warning, it’s a long thread and a time sink. Though you will see a familiar nym in the later comments.
ETA: The last couple of days they’ve been discussing techniques to un-curl old photos with Photoshop.
PJ
@different-church-lady: I think 40% is a fair percentage for the amount of people who are, most of the time, completely self-centered and willing to damage or destroy other people’s lives or possessions as long as they believe there will be no consequences to their own lives (e.g., Laura Ingraham). The percentage of people who are actual sociopaths (that is, they have no emotional affect or capability for empathy, and so engineer their lives as a kind of zero-sum game where they had better get the most toys and power, e.g., Ted Cruz) I think is smaller, maybe 10%.
efgoldman
@Ohio Mom:
D-Con.
BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: I’m afraid to look.
Schlemazel
nm
Baud
@PJ: And then there’s Baud, who’s a sociopath because people are shitty.
Mike J
@Brachiator:
But what the heck, you’re welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
Ruckus
I can attest that I heard about them when I was a kid. Back in the 50s a lot of people were moving to CA and a large portion of the kids I went to schools with were from some other state. I’m second generation CA on one side so it seemed a bit strange to me, not having seen a lot of the rest of the country then. The concept of being snowed in never occurred to me for around my first 7-8 yrs. And we had seen snow in LA by then. OK just flakes and almost nothing on the ground but still it has snowed in the LA urban area. Of course I can only recall it happening a couple more times.
StringOnAStick
Now that our resident pseudo hippie’s last day was yesterday there will again be enough room in the dorm refrigerator in our office. She went on endlessly about her meditation and spirituality classes, sacred dance groups, her spiritual retreat trips to other countries, and yet she crowded everyone else out of the refrigerator and took up two spaces at the crowded table to spread out all her stuff, plus stirred shit between the front office and back office staff. Spiritual my ass.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m tempted to engage.
bemused
@rikyrah:
When I looked it up, I found it on the Democratic Underground. I noticed site called Conservative Underground had a rebuttal. The author saying “we will forgive but not forget” really rankled. How dare the author say they need forgiveness from people who are liars and haters.
efgoldman
@PaulWartenberg:
What WERE you doing all those months you were jobless?
[Daughter says hi]
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@PJ: I thought I had a book called “The Sociopath Next Door” but I must have tossed it during my moving preparations. Anyway, as I recall, that book estimated that in the general population, the percentage of sociopaths was in the single digits. Among people in jail, it was something like 35%. The most interesting number concerned CEOs. The percentage of sociopaths there was double the general population. So it still wasn’t super high, but it was high enough to suggest that sociopathy is an advantage to becoming a CEO,
My physician brother recently told me that the distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy was less clear in the most recent DSM. He joked that a sociopath was just a psychopath who hadn’t killed anyone yet.
Original Lee
We had a serial food thief in our dorm when I was in college. The pattern of theft was puzzling – never the same kind of food twice, and never at the same time of day or week. Finally we were inspired to spike some Rocky Road ice cream with phenophthalein, which successfully caught the perpetrator, although not in the way we expected. The young lady was oddly not freaked by the weird color of her urine afterwards, but refused to share Rocky Road ice cream with the rest of the group a couple of weeks later because, she said, she was clearly having an allergic reaction to it. Of course, her explanation of the allergic reaction pinged her, and we called her on her thefts. She was stealing because her parents had only paid for one meal a day in the cafeteria, so she would pray for food before opening the fridge and take some of the first thing she felt the Lord was leading her to eat. Only if she was really hungry, of course. She was so pathetically earnest that we didn’t turn her in and instead made sure to set aside parts of our leftovers on a special plate labelled with her name, so she would have something to eat and we would still have at least some of our stuff.
Shana
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): My late mother’s breast cancer was treated at University of Iowa hospitals. They were terrific and well worth the hour plus drive from the Quad Cities for my parents.
HeleninEire
@Baud: Nah. You’re a sociopath cuz it’s fun! Come on. Admit it!!!! ;)
Just one more canuck
@CAinCA: a former coworker of my wife used to make her own butter and would sell it in big tubs (10 lbs) for an unbelievable price. My wife would buy some and keep it in the office fridge. One day after she bought some, the tub went missing – someone had walked off with a 10 pound tub of butter. People are assholes
Snarki, child of Loki
“Someone must sell lunchboxes with locks built in”
Are they bagel shaped?
I’ll let myself out.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
This was supposed to be a reply to billinglendale at #124
Aleta
@Original Lee: Roommate of a friend was a refrigerator/cupboard thief in the night. He was in recovery and AA for drugs and alcohol and developed a compulsive eating disorder. Nice enough guy, hard foster childhood. Got kicked out of that house over the food, but I hear he’s on his feet now.
Spanky
Apparently there are a number of approaches to food protection.
p.a.
@Just one more canuck: Several of my aunts worked in school lunch kitchens back before most of the cooking was centralized. Their kids joked they hadn’t bought cheese or butter for years. But I’m not sure it wasn’t a reality-based joke.
Rand Careaga
@germy: About thirty or thirty-five years ago I was returning from work and, a dozen or so yards from my home, saw a leashed dog take a crap on my lawn (or my “drought victory garden” as it might more aptly have been styled). “Retrieve that, please,” I asked the owner as we drew abreast. She ignored me, walked right past. “Please pick that up,” I repeated. I might note that in those days most dog owners did not bag up the droppings, so my request was perhaps not as reasonable then as it would appear today, and also that I was then perhaps half my present age, and had yet not attained the lofty levels of impulse control I now enjoy. In any event, I picked up the poop barehanded and flung it at her, aiming for the middle of her back. Instead, it sailed over her right shoulder, landing with a splat on the sidewalk in front of her. So yeah, I was left with dogshit smeared all over my right palm, but I did have the satisfaction of seeing owner and dog put on a burst of speed that would have done credit to the late Roger Bannister as they headed for the Oakland/Berkeley city line at about 25 mph. I don’t recount the episode with pride, but it would be nice to imagine that it might have had a salutary influence on the other person who behaved badly on the occasion. I do not, of course, fault the pooch.
In my neighborhood the trash cans are generally stored outdoors, and particularly since the city removed a receptacle conveniently placed along the dog’s and my morning route, I have been known to drop a securely-knotted bag, unlikely to be penetrated by even the most desperate egg-laying fly, in a neighbor’s receptacle left at curbside. Of far more significance, I think, is the sociological development that has owners routinely collecting the stuff, although I’m still puzzled by those who, having bagged the crap, leave it next to the sidewalk, apparently feeling that they have now done all that conscience might reasonably require.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks. I will add it to my list of California history links.
You probably know this one, but just in case. History, Los Angeles County
Aleta
@Spanky: D.I.Y.: Put a crumpled up kleenex or two in the ziplock lunch bag.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
After a recent anti-Disney posting, I am now positive. Not just the same obsession, but the same misspelling of a specific name.
Aleta
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks — good stuff.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: Hadn’t seen that one, added a bookmark. Thanks.
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
How could anybody be anti-Mouse? Just because they want to control 101% of the entertainments industries? Who could be against that?
Aleta
@Brachiator: This has already proved useful! Big thanks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: You’re welcome, it took me about 6 months of reading a couple of pages a night to catch up.
BillinGlendaleCA
Now if you want a real time sink, this collection of historic aerials qualifies. I learned that the first elementary school that I attended(later also my middle school) was brand new when I started kindergarten.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Troll insists that I am personally responsible for the actions of Harvey Weinstein, who was fired from Disney before I started here. ?
Aleta
@BillinGlendaleCA: Also appreciate the advice on curled old photos on the last couple of pages.
Aleta
@BillinGlendaleCA: I looked at this before (perhaps it was from you) but it seemed like I couldn’t simply zoom in on a colored dot to see an aerial photo. Maybe an address is needed? (Or maybe I’m not patient enough to figure it out.)
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
Of course you are.
And I’m personally responsible for the RI legislator arrested for child porn
gbbalto
@Roger Moore: Once worked on an old dining car with steam cabinet. Put rock hard buns in for a few minutes, would swear they were just hot from oven.
Scott P.
After exhaustive analysis of the evidence, I now believe there must have been a second shitter.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): My sister (the other one, not the one you met) read that book.
J R in WV
@CAinCA:
Years ago, while I was managing multiple software development projects, and recruiting people from all over the planet to move to WV to work on enviro software projects, I had to take complaints from white bread clerical staff who couldn’t abide a smell in the lunchroom that wasn’t a smell that their great-grandparents made in their log cabin kitchens.
So that Chinese/Indian/Peruvian/Indonesian smelling food, all that was right out!!! as far as some of those folks were concerned. I personally thought it smelled really interesting and wanted to ask them to bring some leftovers for me too, but wow, there’s a HR problem. The clerk was $5 a dozen easy to find, but wanted me to let someone we recruited to come from Bangaore at $70/hour go because clerk didn’t like the lunch smell…
I was floored that they had the brass to complain about a “fishy” smell. Or otherwise spicy aroma they had never smelled before in their life, so it must have been something nasty, right? Wrong! At least no one was relieving themselves in someone else’s wastebasket… thank dog for small favors!!
BellyCat
@Gelfling 545:
I fail to see the problem here.
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
That seems like an excellent explanation to give them. “If you don’t like it, you’re free to look for another job. I’m sure I’ll have an easier time replacing you than the guy with the funny smelling food.”
J R in WV
@Gelfling 545:
They’re just gonna do your feet, so you won’t even have to close your eyes. Lighten up a little bit. All you have to worry about is the noise, your head will be out in the room.
efgoldman
@BellyCat:
If they got caught, t’would have nuked the station and my job
Shana
@Rand Careaga: Back when we had a dog I would occasionally find bags of poop on the side of the road. I think in our case it was owners who would circle back toward their house and pick it up on the way home. Instead of carrying it with them for the whole walk. I rarely saw what seemed to be the same bag the next day.
Mnemosyne
@BellyCat:
I have a car to sell you, then. The woman my spouse tutors had her SUV stolen by some jackholes who used it to joyride around and smoke weed with the windows up. When the cops called her to pick it up from the impound lot after they abandoned it, she couldn’t even bring herself to drive it, it reeked so bad.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Time sink on the other coast; sometimes spooky, always fascinating.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
““Where’s Your Messiah Now, Republicans?”
OK, now, you gotta tell us who wrote that!?! Just putting the quote marks is only half the job, naming the author is the rest of it…
And Good Morning, also too !~! ;-)
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
I don’t understand your point. I Illustrated the strike tag and wrapped the example in a code tag for emphasis. It seems to have worked fine (mobile site, Android, Chrome here).
BellyCat
@Mnemosyne: Back in my misspent prehistoric college days, I recall a sunny road-trip to NYC where we blazed so heavily that the driver turned on the windshield wipers to better see the road. Hilarity ensued.
Good times….
KS in MA
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): That’s good news indeed!!!
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
Find another critter catcher business that knows how to do it. These guys are a one trick pony, and this squirrel is wise to their trick.
Rand Careaga
@Shana: I very frequently see these bags for days at a time. Sometimes, if in the weekly collection cycle I am likely to find cans out, I will retrieve these.
nasruddin
Garden variety work psychopath. Nothing to worry about here, you won’t even feel the blade
when it slips between your cervical vertebrae and severs your carotid artery.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Thanks for the info you left me about calcium. Found it this morning but the thread was dead.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): So glad to hear it!
chuckInAustin
I had a similar situation. I bought a sandwich from food truck that parked at our building once a week. On my way back to my desk I stopped at the restroom to wash my hands and left the bag with sandwich and chips on a nearby table. When I came out the food was gone.
We had a very serious facilities manager and I had worked there quite a while. She went to the video and 10 minutes later delivered a fresh sandwich and chips to my desk and said the perpetrator had been ‘dealt with’.
The company employed some shady sales people (along with some wonderful sales people.) The thief (one of the shady ones) was fired within a couple of weeks after it was determined that he ‘didn’t work well with others.’
efgoldman
@chuckInAustin:
Redundant and repetitive.
WaterGirl
@Gelfling 545: I missed your ankle story, so I know no details, but I”m sorry to hear about your ankle.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Thanks for that! I copied it and saved it for future use.
jimmiraybob
Any chance this psychopath went on and got elected president of the United States? Pretty much the same modus operandi – spreading shit everywhere. On second thought the office psychopath was at least considerate enough to containerize. I don’t know. 50-50?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: You have to click on the dot and a dialog will tell you if it’s been scanned. You have to download the image to view it.
Brad the Impala
I worked at a company that had an unwritten policy that if you scheduled a meeting intersecting with the lunch hour, you provided a catered lunch at the meeting. Any left over food was put up for grabs in the lunch room. The crazy lady next to me in the cube farm would keep an eye out for such windfalls and would fill container after container of this food and haul it back to her cubicle (she kept empty containers in her desk specifically for these opportunities). She would then take the food home to provide several meals for herself and her husband. No one cared much about her hogging all the free food, but as someone who is well versed in food safety, I found it horrifying. Imagine sandwiches/pasta/salad/veg&dip/chicken/beef/burritos/tacos sitting out at room temp for an hour or two during the meeting. Then sitting in a nice, warm break room until she sniffed it out. Then languishing in Tupperware on her desk until quitting time. Then basking in the sun on the passenger seat of her car during her hour-plus commute home. And all the while, happy bacteria are having sexy-joy-time parties of fruitfulness and multiplication (the fun kind) in this food. It was always a wonder to me that she’d show up to work the next day, neither waylaid by severe intestinal distress, nor dead from botulism. After frequent exposure, do human digestive systems become vulture-like in their ability withstand a bacterial onslaught?
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
@J R in WV:
Which reminds me. Since this is Easter weekend, is “The Ten Commandments” on TV anywhere over the holiday?
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Sounds like good news! When are you moving to Chicagoland? Assume you and MrDAWfIOL will be finding a new medical team.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
ABC, 7:00 p.m. EDT Saturday.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
I am bemused by the coincidence this year of Easter and April Fool’s Day. Keep thinking of utterly tasteless jokes that combine the two.
chuckInAustin
@Brad the Impala: I always wanted to conduct an experiment. How rotten did a sandwich have to be before no one would eat it. I never tried it. I was afraid someone might get seriously ill.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Cool. And, in the spirit of the season, the best Ten Commandments trailer parody, 10 Things I Hate About Commandments
@SiubhanDuinne:
We’ve also got Passover, so even more opportunity for questionable humor.
Jay S
Whoa indeed https://twitter.com/zaktoscani/status/979817701458640896
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
I’m a little surprised TCM is not running to DeMille’s 1923 version of The Ten Commandments. They usually do, I seem to remember, and it would be a natural fit for their “silent Sunday night” thing. They are, of course, running a full slate of cheesy ’50s and ’60s Biblical movies on Saturday and Sunday.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
That is a great trailer.
Brad the Impala
@chuckInAustin:
Unfortunately, a quite reasonable fear. Thank you for caring about your fellow man.
Aleta
@BillinGlendaleCA: thanks
eta oh wow
ixnay
@efgoldman: Not D-con. Dying critters get picked up by owls, who then also die. Traps, either live or kill. We are about to try rat traps for the squirrls.
Brad the Impala
Before you put poison or traps out for squirrels, you may want to check local laws. I believe it’s illegal to poison squirrels in California and you need a permit from Fish & Game (?) to trap them – don’t know about other states. Our neighbors put out rat poison for a mild problem we were having. This, in turn, may be what killed off all the kites, hawks, owls, and falcons we used to have in the area. But now that Kitty keeps the neighborhood rat-free, the birds of prey are making a comeback.
Jay
@J R in WV:
One of the best things ever, about working for an Industrial Computer Company I once worked for, were the potlucks,
That, and evertime Mohammed’s Mom made him roti for lunch, ( naan bread wrapped around day old curried lamb), she made him take some to work for me as well.
JR
@germy: I am totally with you. Fucking dog walkers drop their poop in our bins and the collection guys only pull the bags out, so the poop just sits on the bottom and festers. I’m tempted to go video surveillance.
TenguPhule
@Brad the Impala:
Actually they might have just been murdered by the jackhole who was caught redhanded shooting 40+ hawks in California.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
If you can get into the attic, put some open containers of ammonia near where the nest is. A build of of ammonia is Mother Natures way of telling wildlife that they have fouled their own nest, and it’s no longer heathy.
They will soon move out.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack (phone): Dead thread but…
There have been several occasions here where I’ve tried to use multiple attribute tags on a word and only one worked. My reading of JanieM’s ETA was that she couldn’t get nested tags to work in her post.
I was trying to illustrate that via several pairs including bold-underline which didn’t work. But, of course, [u] was deprecated in HTML5 so it wouldn’t work anyway even if FYWP didn’t happen.
[/Emily_Litella]
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
Thanks for clearing up my confusion. I think JanieM was just trying to do a
lieulight thing in the style that has become usual here, not nested codes.I have not had a problem with nested codes. Depending on how someone is trying to insert them, I could see problems possibly arising if they are not properly nested, e.g., a is started, b is started, then a is closed before b is closed. Dunno for sure.