It’s a legitimate food item though. There’s no way somebody’s going to get in trouble for having a persimmon in their lunch. However, I don’t think it would be particularly effective, I’ve had an unripe persimmon and while I’ll admit it wasn’t a fun experience they’re just gonna avoid the persimmon next time.
I’d just go with hot sauce or maybe a light sprinkle of bhut jolokia powder if you think the hot sauce is too obvious. On the off chance somebody sued you, well, I’ve seen people put hot sauce on ice cream, sandwiches, all sorts of things, seems like a reasonable item to put on or in your food. Cat food and laxatives, not so much.
I don’t care how broke someone is if they’re stealing from me. Jeez, if it was someone I know who needed help, I would buy them food but stealing is just low.
I’m pretty sure that a communal fridge is considered a public area, and there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy. Also, the semester is just starting, and while a sandwich here and some ice cream there are small things, they add up. And it’s good to know if there’s a thief in the dorm.
No, it’s doesn’t, but that’s not the argument I’m making. My argument is “I am constipated and so I did what I wanted with my food and he/she stole it and thus bears the responsibility.”
I don’t see what’s so objectionable about that. And stop making it sound like giving someone the runs because they stole your food is the same as pouring hydrochloric acid into a targeted person’s drink.
Tampering with someone else’s food, sure. I’m gonna go out to the kitchen right now and put some dog food in my sandwich. Might I get five years for that? Or is it only if I leave it in the fridge? What if I put it in the fridge and a burglar breaks in and eats it? Or what if I have some unpleasant beer-coloured liquid which needs to be kept cold, so I put that in the fridge and someone comes along and steals it? What if I really DO like dog food sandwiches? Am I still not allowed to keep one in the fridge for fear someone might steal it?
But your argument is clearly a lie. You put some noxious substance in the food expecting someone else to take it and eat it. IANAL, but I really can’t see that going over too well.
BTW, what’s wrong with pouring hydrochloric acid into your own drink? “I am saving it for a science experiment and so I did what I wanted with my food and he/she stole it and thus bears the responsibility.”
I don’t know how you’d prove that it was a lie, but I’ll humor you. Why in the world are you burdened with the responsibility to ensure someone’s safety if it’s only relevant when they commit a crime against you? That’s like prosecuting someone because his pit bull mauled a thief who broke into his house. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CRIMINALS???
However, I understand that one does have a burden to 1) try to prevent accidental ingestion of the substance in question, and 2) not make the outcome extremely out of proportion to the crime. Just #1 would give me pause in a communal refrigerator, but people are blowing this way out of proportion. A laxative? Come on. You want to outlaw Chipotle too?
According to the OP they already have a mini-fridge in their dorm. There wasn’t enough room in it for ice cream so they put it in the communal fridge. The college may not allow them to have a mini-fridge and an additional mini-freezer.
That’s the one I was talking about, and I assume that it has a mini-freezer. If it’s not big enough to hold a galon of ice cream, he may have to bite the bullet and buy it in pints.
I do wonder what the thief did with the gallon container. Either he has his own full-size freezer or he ate the whole thing in one sitting. I find either scenario to be unlikely.
Could it be that several people thought that some kind soul bought them all ice cream, and the last person to finish it off threw the container away? Or does the dorm have a clean-out policy? I’ve worked in places where if you had anything in the fridge late on Friday afternoon, it would get tossed. Funky smells and science experiments tend not to accumulate that way.
I’d at least consider these alternate scenarios before launching into a habanero-and-laxative-ice-cream-in-a-capsaicin-covered-tampon-box revenge scheme.
The problem is, you have no idea what might happen to the person who eats the adulterated food. That person might have a sensitivity to the chemicals in the laxative and could end up severely ill. Hot sauce is a fine and dandy “joke” unless the person in question has an allergy to peppers (not uncommon) and goes into anaphylaxis.
And before you say “well then they shouldn’t have stolen food” I agree, no one should steal someone else’s food. But neither should someone face hospitalization, serious illness or potential death over a $4 container of ice cream. As someone above noted, it might’ve been the only thing that the thief had to eat in days. There was a recent LA Times article about college students who were actually homeless. Times are awful. Revenge is childish. Security should be focused on defense, not offense.
I presume you are invoking the eggshell skull principle, and that point is taken.
But (and I don’t know the legally correct answer), if the thief is allergic to a substance, I would think he/she is assuming the risk when a food of unknown provenance is illegally and willfully consumed. I am troubled that I have a duty of care that kicks in only when someone has stolen from me, outside of what can be reasonably foreseen.
Regardless, inarguably, you DO have a duty to people who mistakenly might consume your food, which is again why I wouldn’t do it in this case.
If they face hospitalization, it’s their own fault. Nobody made them steal. I don’t know where anyone is getting this notion that you aren’t allowed to put whatever you want in your own food, but it’s a complete load of crap.
Personally, my first, overriding desire would be simply to know who the fuck it is. I have no problem with payback, and would certainly prioritize payback well above just protecting future sandwiches, but I don’t want payback without knowing who it is first. For one thing, there’s a small chance that I might feel differently when I see who it is (and I know we’re talking about a college campus, but with workplace thieves, the odds that the thief will have any sympathetic excuse is vanishingly small), and for another if they DON"T have an excuse, then I want to confront them head on and directly, get right up in that ass, Leon style, call them right out on it in front of other people, put up signs on the walls informing people that “X steals food, watch out for X”), and the like. Why fuck around with passive aggression? “hey, you, fuckhead! You’re stealing someone else’s food.” is a lot more productive. Identification and public shaming is the way to go for me. I don’t have a moral problem with X-laxing them, but then you don’t really get to see it, and the chances ar you still won’t know who they are or be able to publicly out them.
So my approach woukd be focused on identification. A camcorder would be an obvious way to go, or maybe putting some kind unwashable (but harmless) dye in the food or packaging that won’t wash off. Barring anything else, I’d just stake the place out and watch like a hawk. I’d figure out something, but one way or the other, I’d figure out who it was. I’d have a psychological need to SEE this cocksucker like this and know who it is.
FWIW, I’m thinking that “poisoning” or indeed poisoning someone through the mechanism of them stealing your food could fall in the same legal area as using a trap to defend your home. People are not allowed to break into your house - they could easily go to jail if caught. However, if you set up a shotgun aimed at head height with a trip wire, that is not legal either, even though technically the person is killing himself by breaking the law.
It’s still fun to *imagine *a purloiner getting the massive runs from your “special” ice cream though.
So far a couple of people, not just myself, have mentioned the possibility of disguising food. In fact in another thread about this kind of thing people encouraged someone to buy special containers designed to look like your sandwich or whatever is covered in moldto disguise their food as being inedible. Produce boxes were the first thing to come to mind that the OP could get for free and would probably detour someone who is rifling through the freezer looking for tasty snacks to pilfer. Again, if that particular disguise doesn’t work for the OP they can get old margerine tubs or an empty box from a medical supply company or any other type of thing that does not upon immediate inspection appear to be cookie dough ice cream.
Are you 100% sure that the law would see it that way? I remember a case from years ago where a guy booby trapped his house against burglars, and one burglar got seriously injured breaking in, while another was killed. The general concensus among the public was “serves them right”, but the owner ended up serving an 8 month sentence (suspended) for using excessive force.
That’s not to say that the OP would face jail time for putting Ex-lax in his own ice cream, but I’d want to at least find out more before doing so. I agree that finding out the thief’s identity is a better way to go about it.
Having said that, the Ex-lax option is not a really satisfying one. From the way people endorse it, it’s almost as if the thief will take one bite of the ice cream and instantly (and publicly) explode in a firey ball of poo. Laxatives generally do not work like that. Nor is the thief likely to say “Gee, I’ve got a bit of the runs tonight. This is probably my punishment for the sin of theft, therefore I will stop my thievery.” I’ve had diarrhea many times in my life, and never once did it occur to me that someone was slipping me Colace mickies.