That, my friends, is where you would be wrong. You see, I have a darkness in me - a rebellious side, something I can't control or suppress. I have a hunger for crime that must be sated, and only one thing will quench it's thirst*...
...I must steal food from the office kitchen.
Oh yes.
*I mixed my metaphors, going from hunger to thirst but I ended up liking it so SHUT UP ABOUT IT
Before you condemn me, listen up; I'm not stealing any individual co-worker's lunch or anything. I may be a superhardcorerebel* but I'm not an asshole. The food I am stealing is communal food; the office provides food for everyone to share. Technically, since the food is for everyone, I'm not even actually stealing. BUT IT FEELS LIKE I AM, and that, dear readers, is a thrill.
*Listen, I'm way bad, okay? I got a detention one time - that's where the middle school boys get separated from the middle school men (who are also boys)
The office caters in lunch on Mondays, which is, granted, incredibly generous. My goal: make that food last me through at least Wednesday. Last week we had Jimmy John's, and a pile of sandwiches were laid out across the kitchen countertop. One for lunch, sure. And now that my work scheduled me without asking to work until seven every night, I think the very least they can do to apologize for their general heinousness is buy me dinner as well. So another sandwich it is.
Now here's where the game gets fun. See, by this point, there's sandwiches left in the fridge - but not enough for everyone to have one for lunch the next day. Someone's going to get to eat them... it might as well be me, nay, it should be me, since I appreciate free food like no other. GOD I LOVE FREE FOOD*.
*My freshman year of college, my cousin would always ask me to swipe her into the dorm dining hall so she could eat the food there; she was always so excited when I did this, which I couldn't comprehend. It was just cafeteria food! Only later, when I no longer lived in a dorm, did I truly understand the magnitude of a free-for-all buffet. I had a freshman friend of mine bring me into the dining hall several nights a week, taking plate after plate of hot food. So. Satisfying. Guys, food is the best. Food is way better than everything, WAY better than sex.
(My friend came back from Europe and told me that whenever she and her friends met people on their travels, they would ask a simple question that ALWAYS led to heated debate, and defined what kind of person you were down to the core of your very being - if you had to give up one of these two things FOR LIFE and keep only one, which would you keep: cheese or oral sex? Um, CHEESE, is that even a question?! Ossers versus cheesers, as they referred to it: the debate that defines a generation.)
The trick now is to get out of the office with the most sandwiches as possible without letting anyone notice, because while technically I'm not doing anything wrong, it's pretty tacky and classless. Very me. So it becomes a little challenge, a thrill to spice up my day. I slip a Jimmy John's up my sleeve or hide it behind folders and quickly get it over to my backpack. I've now banked one sandwich*. This is only the beginning. I leave that sandwich in my fridge at home, then take one out of the fridge "for lunch" the next day, but instead place it in my bag. Then, at lunchtime, I take another from the fridge. I just banked two more sandwiches. I'll eat free Jimmy John's until Thursday.
*remember to say "BANK" when you get your sandwich or you could end up being The Weakest Link
There are more opportunities. On Fridays, the higher-ups get a bunch of desserts catered in from a bakery... these are delicious, hot-ticket items. Once they finish their meeting, the leftovers remain on the conference table, and we underlings fend for ourselves trying to get to them first. These missions are especially dangerous, because it's in full view of the office, and I don't want anyone to see me taking a brownie, pecan bar, AND a miniature bundt cake (see above, re: tacky and classless). So you have to be lightning quick... you need to just act like you're perusing, maybe you're not really hungry.... then BAM, grab as much as you can, quickly wrap it in a paper towel so it looks like you took just one, and then get it back to your bag to eat at home at your leisure. You could be caught at any moment... but if you're cunning, you won't be.
But that's not all! I've managed to get out of the office with hot peppers, pizza, entire trays of chinese food, and of course, there's that crystalline moment when you take a bottle of cholula from work. It's the simple things in life you treasure.
There are more opportunities. On Fridays, the higher-ups get a bunch of desserts catered in from a bakery... these are delicious, hot-ticket items. Once they finish their meeting, the leftovers remain on the conference table, and we underlings fend for ourselves trying to get to them first. These missions are especially dangerous, because it's in full view of the office, and I don't want anyone to see me taking a brownie, pecan bar, AND a miniature bundt cake (see above, re: tacky and classless). So you have to be lightning quick... you need to just act like you're perusing, maybe you're not really hungry.... then BAM, grab as much as you can, quickly wrap it in a paper towel so it looks like you took just one, and then get it back to your bag to eat at home at your leisure. You could be caught at any moment... but if you're cunning, you won't be.
But that's not all! I've managed to get out of the office with hot peppers, pizza, entire trays of chinese food, and of course, there's that crystalline moment when you take a bottle of cholula from work. It's the simple things in life you treasure.
But let's examine this phenomenon: why does it give me such a rush? Well, the first thing I should consider is that I might be a kleptomaniac. I doubt it though, since I don't shoplift... much.* So what else could be driving this insane, pulse-pounding need to take free food? I think my love of free food meets this desire to rebel, to stick it to the man. "You're gonna treat me like shit? Well I'm not going to take it lying down! I'm going to take it home with me in a container!" I feel like since I can't speak out, I stand up for myself in other ways. Wonderful, tasty food ways.
*no but actually I don't shoplift
It's like the other day, when one of my bosses spoke to me with such rude condescension. Did I mention I love being spoken to like I'm an idiot?* It happens all the time. Two days ago, a not-so-nice lady acted like I was a moron for asking her if she wanted to take a call that was for her. She responded to me like I was an idiot child. Do I get to yell back at her**? To I get to call her out for being rude? Nope. But she'll pay... oh yes, she'll pay.
In brownies.
*no but actually I don't like being spoken to like an idiot
**In my head I imagined screaming at her, "I TEST VERY HIGHLY!" and running away
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