Man! I thought this had something to do with what remains of my leg! Stump Removal! Wasn’t the first amputation enough?
[Moderator Hat ON]
Sending this stump of a thread over to IMHO…
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Sometimes muffins really are as big as a volleyball, with enough calories to replace an entire meal. The way it goes at my workplace is: leaving a stump is bad. It is perceived as having cooties and having taken the best part and leaving crumbs for those peons you’re forced to work with. A sign probably won’t work because either you won’t be believed, nobody wants the note-writing freak’s stump, or nobody else wants the stump either.
You’ve got three choices. Eat the whole muffin, perhaps saving the stump for a little snack. And/or, before taking the muffin, ask if anybody would like the stump, but call it the ‘bottom part’ (mystery stumps are bad, knowing the stump seperator means you can check for cooties, you see). Lastly, cut the muffin in half, vertically. Using a knife to cut the muffin reduces cooties.
Usually I ask if anybody wants the bottom part and there’s always a guy who wants it. No waste, because there are children starving in Africa, you know.
And I thought this was about tree stump removal and the ethics involved. I didn’t even do the mouse-over to read the first few sentances, I just jumped right in to see what the big deal was. I thought there was a whole new world of morality that I had passed over all my life.
I thought everyone knew that all the good nutrients are in the stump. 
Muffins are huge these days; a whole one is a meal. In our office, it’s quite common to bring food in, and put a knife and napkins beside it. Point being, help yourself, but show some moderation.
The accepted etiquette in our office is to use the knife to take half a pastry, or smaller, lessening the cootie factor, and yes, to cut the muffin vertically, leaving half a muffin that has both a top and a stump.
I think it’s kind of funny, the unspoken bit with the knife, but sometimes I have half a pastry instead of feeling like a piggy eating a whole one.
My vote is that if you’re going to eat half a muffin, you have to have a half that’s cut through the middle from the top, with a knife. It’s better for everyone that way. 
Ettiquette in my office is the same as others have mentioned: cut the muffin in half vertically with a knife (and, yes, muffins are now the size of wedding cakes).
If you must have the whole top, find a way to dispose of the stump. Looking at muffin stumps creeps me out. It’s like decapitated muffin corpses are lying there amidst my food! Hide the bodies dammit!
Obviously, it’s better to cut it in half, unless there is such an ungodly profusion of muffins that it is clear they will not all be eaten.
That said, eating just a muffin top does not seem horribly wasteful if that’s all you eat. On the other hand, eating TWO muffin tops would be positively decadent.
I suppose I could Hoffatize the stumps hide bits of them in little hidden places around the office. Then again, we have a bad mice problem, so how sanitary is that?
Better yet, I could just not take any muffins at all. It’s not like I need the extra calories.
Sucking out the jelly and leaving behind the doughtnut? Immoral.
Pulling apart the Oreos, eating the halves with the creme filling, and putting the other halves back in the package? Immoral.
Eating all the M&Ms out of the trail mix? Immoral.
(For zombies only) Eating the cerebral cortex and leaving behind the cerebellum and medula oblongata for the next guy? Immoral. But what can you expect from zombies?
Could you find a friend who just wants a small snack, take the top for yourself and give the stump to him/her?
I’d be your perfect muffin-buddy. (Heh.) I’m watching what I eat, so I don’t want a whole muffin, and just about all commercial baked goods seem to sweet to me. The crust on the top is really sweet, and I wouldn’t miss it at all. That goes double if there’s frosting. (Ick!) You can have the top and I’ll be content to munch on your stump. (Heh heh heh.)
This is my take too. It’s like scraping the frosting off the top of a cake, or picking out the chocolate chips from a cookie or the crabmeat from a pasta salad. If you take only part of a food item, at least take it in appropriate proportions.
Oh… this is about food, not a medical question. Never mind.
Funny, that’s why I thought, too.
Whine! We never get muffins at work in Japan. Can someone box a couple up (or even just the stumps if you followed the tdn method). Something’s got to be better then dead fish in the morning.
Is there no such method of creating a stumpless muffin? I trust something like this can’t be long off from coming about. Or does the muffin top grow from within the stump?
Are you suggesting genetically altered muffins? :eek:
so, what am I, chopped liver?
This is my take as well. I’d be very annoyed if I saw leftover stumps. “I’ll take the best part. You jerks can take my leavings.”
Boy, if I ever had a nickel for every time someone said that to me…
Eh, I got nothin’.
Just minutes ago I went into the break room and saw several leftover tasty treats. Including muffins in their natural state. I also saw a cruller where both ends were picked off, leaving a cruller fragment. Sitting next to it was the stubby remains of a slice of lemon cake. I opted to take the cruller fragment (and boy was it tasty).
I walked in minutes later to find that someone had cut the leman cake stub in half with the knife and taken half (about one bite). Someone else had cut a powdered sugar donut into what looked like a letter G, taking about 2 bites of donut arc away. So clearly people take parts, and others take leftover parts.
What’s so very different if the part taken has vertical superiority over the remainder?
I can see it both ways.
I’m stumped.