Friday, January 18, 2008

My Cream Cheese

Last Friday I made a decision.
I decided to save $2 per day by skipping my daily bagel and cream cheese from the deli in my building. Instead, I sauntered over to the Safeway down the street and bought a bag of bagels and a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese (with 1/3 the fat of regular cream cheese). I toasted my bagel, slathered on the cream cheese product, and enjoyed it with coffee. Yum.
On Monday, I arrived to the office eager to enjoy another bagel. Unfortunately, the cream cheese that I had left in the community fridge was gone--not used--GONE. Going over my morning email, I ate my dry bagel... seething.
You know, I used to scoff at the people who would leave passive aggressive notes on their food products in the fridge (e.g. "Nelson's butter - DO NOT USE" or "Kelly's margarine food product spread - DO NOT USE"), but now I see where they are coming from. It's likely that they--like me--were violated at one time. It doesn't feel good. I mean... here I am--a poor graduate student who just took out a bunch of loans and is rubbing nickels together to try and scrape up some breakfast and some... person just decides to claim my reduced-fat spread (that's been used once). Not cool.
So, anyway, after I cooled down (Wednesday) I went ahead and bought another tub. I immediately put a dated Post-It on it saying, "Toby's Cream Cheese." I am happy to report that it still resides safely in the fridge, but this morning my last two bagels went missing. I'm not kidding.

7 comments:

BRN said...

While I am a huge fan of Post-Its, I urge you to purchase a nice, thick permanent marker and write directly on your items. That way, if the theif continues to take your low-fat spread/bagels, they have to consistantly read "Toby's low-fat spread" whenever they choose to use it.

Please note that I am referring to writing on the food wrapping, and not directly on the bagel.

Brian said...

This is a crime against you that must be revenged. You should not have to start your morning like that and justice must prevail here.

I would consider the following: purchase another bag of bagels and tub of Philadelphia cream cheese with the 1/3 less fat. Then, imbed an ExLax pill into the first bagel of the bag. Following that, use an eye dropper to disperse cyanide in the cream cheese. When you see one person making repeat visits to the restroom before dropping dead, you'll know who the culprit was.

Once the predator has been tabbed (i.e. terminated), you won't have to worry about wasting Post-Its on your food as everyone will know not to snake your goods.

Sten said...

community fridges are not to be trusted

CW's said...

Your Government is on top of this. We are calling for a full oversight hearing on this in the Cream Cheese and Crap Committee, subcommittee on Criminal Activities.

We will get to the bottom of this for you!

Signed,
The Government

Julie said...

Oh Toby. They stole nearly my entire loaf of bread, too. One piece left and it was stale - because the perp had left the bag open.

mjlambie said...

that is terrible man. you'd think someone would have the common decency. You don't think it was thrown out by mistake. I know in our office Isabella throws out stuff on the weekends. I mean, for one person to use a whole tub of reduced fat defeats the point of using reduced fat. Unless you think it was an office conspiracy. Maybe they sent an email around the office to play a prank on you. You should throw them off by putting a laxative in your next batch of cream cheese, to teach them a lesson.

I think i'd do this actually. Buy 4 of the same cream cheese. Put laxatives (or some other discomfort element, pepper, tabasco, etc) in 3 of the 4 cream cheeses. Place a note on each one that says, "WARNING. Please be aware that this Philadelphia cream cheese with the 1/3 less fat may be one of 3 cream cheeses with my diet laxative. Due to the pilfering of my recent tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese with the 1/3 less fat I am forced to setup a defense. Eat at your own risk."

hope this helps. cool newe blog!

Ibuster said...

I want to know how much you spent on the bagels and the two tubs of cream cheese. It sounds to me like you're not saving nearly as much as you thought.

If you really want to save money you need to stop drinking so much.