Dilbert Food theft comics

[Ben_Who]

I read my favorite food thief story on the old "Bad Bosses" page (long, long gone) in the late 1990s. Apparently, there was a food thief in one particular office that would actually steal two or three lunches per day from the fridge. The manager proposed greater and greater sanctions against the food thief, but the thefts didn't stop.

A couple months after the thefts started, a member of the crew happened to go into the break room in the middle of the morning to find the manager herself, doubled over in the fridge, shoveling food down just as fast as she possibly could. When discovered, the manager just straightened up, stared at the crew person with a glazed look in her eyes - and went right back to eating. Later, the manager swore blind that she had no memory of the event, despite several witnesses, who peered in to see what all the fuss was about.

I don't know if eating disorders can truly get so bad that you have no memory of eating at all, but this was years before I heard of parasomnia. Of course, only this manager knows for sure. From what I vaguely remember, she did not lose her job, but the thefts stopped.

[wolfie]

Don't know how many people would consider this food theft, but you've probably heard about the never-ending battle between people trying to feed birds, and squirrels trying to feed themselves. One product I've seen is "squirrel-proof bird seed".

How does this work? It's treated with hot pepper. Unlike mammals, birds don't have the nerve receptors to appreciate hot peppers, so to them it's just seed. Apparently, some members of the nightshade family have evolved to take advantage of this fact. If a fruit-eating bird eats the fruit of the pepper plant, the seeds will pass through its digestive system and be crapped out some distance away - great for the plant, because this helps it propagate. If a seed-eating mammal gets at the fruit, however, the seeds are destroyed - bad news for the plant. By putting capiscasin in the fruit (ever noticed how the veins and seeds are "hotter" than the rest of the pepper?), the plant makes its fruit attractive to birds but unattractive to mammals (except for one species of primate which consumes a number of different plant products for the express purpose of ingesting the plant's chemical defenses).

If you cook with hot peppers, and you're also trying to keep squirrels out of your bird feeders, try saving and drying the seeds, then mixing them in with your bird seed.

[lordlundar]

If you cook with hot peppers, and you're also trying to keep squirrels out of your bird feeders, try saving and drying the seeds, then mixing them in with your bird seed.

You really underestimate squirrels. They will happily pick out the hot seeds and run off with the others, most likely after either dumping the hot seeds on your doorstop or throwing them at you as a warning.

[cindybubbles]

Here are some more Dilbert food theft comics that I can post:

My Lettuce is Gone!
Crime Pays
Luckily for me, I'm a sociopath

I'll also update the first post.