Has anyone at work (or wherever) ever eaten your lunch or thrown it away?

[Dash87]

Really annoying...

I used to have a roommate who would steal my food and drinks. They were also dumb enough to just leave the half-full cans out in plain view. I resorted to hiding my stuff behind clothes, and other methods.

[hibbing]

1. no but...

Hey,
People label their stuff in the work fridge. But stuff still does go missing, just not mine. Another obnoxious thing people do is leave leftovers in the fridge for weeks at time, that eventually gets tossed when the fridge gets cleaned about once every month or usually a bit longer. I have got kind of obnoxious myself by putting a toxic label on containers that have been in there for a few weeks!

Peace

[kentauros]

2. I think that might have happened a very long time ago.

But I don't put my lunch in the office fridges any more. Now I use one of these insulated bags, with a frozen water bottle like this one for the ice pack

[MiddleFingerMom]

3. In Pennsylvania, I used to order a calzone and eat it that lunch and lunch the next day...

.
.
.
... if no one had scarfed it up, which happened with annoying regularity.
.
.
.
These calzones had some sort of egg wash on top and the pilfering stopped when
I labeled them thusly: "This is not glazed -- I licked it all over."
.
.
.

[kentauros]

5. Most people have No Idea

about how baked goods are created (other than the dough-mixing and baking parts.) I'm sure the calzone place did use an egg wash (one whole egg in a cup of water, whisked.) And your solution to the problem is brilliant!

[aikoaiko]

4. If you were able to see me, you'd know that no one wants me hungry and angry.

Roommates are a drag. Confront him/her with clear boundaries and dump him/her if he/she continues.

[rrneck]

6. Dave's Insanity Sauce is your friend.

http://store.davesgourmet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAIR

[kentauros]

7. I'm not into harming people myself.

however I have discovered that where I work now, most people don't like Indian food. Houston has the second-largest population of people from India and yet I can't count the number of people here I've met that don't like Indian cuisine.

Now, you could always label a dish as some kind of Thai curry (which I've found more people like) and have it be some kind of Indian curry instead

[rrneck]

8. That'll work.

Of course you don't have to use the hottest spice on the planet. A bit of tobasco hidden in the center of a sandwich would work. Or for that matter not hot stuff at all. Bitter, salty, or even too sweet might work. As long as there is an unpleasant surprise.

Or you could let them steal the food and put a note in the fridge the next day warning whoever ate it should seek medical attention immediately because it was your kid's biology experiment.

I guess I'm feeling puckish tonight.

[Orrex]

9. Take your lunch in an opaque Tupperware container labeled "Stool Sample"

[Kennah]

10. Years ago, I worked as a cashier at a gas station.

My brother also worked there, and he was in the lunchroom one day eating lunch with several of the guys. Among them was a guy, whom we'll call Bud, who was suspected of stealing lunches from time to time.

Another guy, whom we'll call Lou, burst into the lunchroom. Lou was, for want of a better term, not entirely right in the head. I got along just fine with Lou, but there was a moral ambivalence about him.

Anywho, Lou asked, "OK, which one of you motherfuckers drank my Coke that was in the frig?" Silence. Lou then smiled his deranged and borderline psychotic smile, and said, "That's OK. I pissed in it."

Bud burst out, "Ah, man!"

There were no problems with food disappearing after that.

[Broken_Hero]

11. Yep, happened to me a lot at work

and a decent handful of times with roomates. At work I just learned to not bring anything, and buy/eat everything at lunch/break time. With roomates I just bought more, they were hard up for the most part so it didn't bother me that much.

[Quantess]

12. There was a food thief at a place I worked at.

A lot of employees, and nobody figured out who was doing it. Everyone had had food stolen from the lunch room.

Another place I worked, there was a guy who had a thing for touching (literally) other people's food. He would poke his fingers in it and take a bite, and put it back. I saw him doing it, and I assumed it was his own food. Nope!