Tale of the Cookie Thief

Since there aren't enough nice stories out there in the world, I bring you one from work.  You're welcome.

It doesn't start out very nice.  A few weeks ago I opened the freezer door at work to put away my lunch and discovered that someone has been pilfering cookies from the Entemann's boxes I had put there after coffee hour the week before.  One frozen cookie at a time.  I may have thought something mean along the lines of "Hope you broke a tooth, Cookie Thief!"  After a resident meeting a few weeks later, I put two leftover mini cupcake trays in there, with the intention of defrosting and serving them for the next meeting.  Next day, the cupcakes had vanished.  Not only that, all the cookies were gone.  Not just gone....the Cookie Thief had left the empty boxes in the freezer, along with some frozen crumbs.

I was incensed.  It's not like I haven't seen this problem at other sites before, I know of one place that had to buy a bicycle lock for their fridge in order to keep people out.  That looks unsightly though, so I settled on a sign.  I knew it wouldn't be very effective but it if I caught whomever was pilfering frozen goodies, I could say that there was a SIGN so you had clear INTENT to eat treats without care.  The sign was on gold-colored paper with huge block capital letters;  "PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE MANAGEMENT OFFICE."   Say it like you mean it, 'cept I will never be able to be a badass, because even when I'm telling you off I'm polite about it.  Some tact is required though, after all this is work. Had it been elsewhere it might've read differently.

Imagine my surprise....I came to work last week and opened the freezer to put away my Healthy Choice frozen dinner (blah) and there were two bags of walmart-brand chocolate chip cookies.  That's strange.  The next day:  two trays of mini cupcakes from the local grocery, one chocolate and one vanilla, decorated in fall frosting colors like the ones that had disappeared.

I often say that nothing surprises me in this business, that in twelve years I've pretty much seen it all.  But I was surprised, and I'd never seen anything like it.  So thank you, Cookie Thief, for either having a conscience or being terrified by my totally righteous sign.  I take back what I said about breaking your teeth on frozen cookies.