# People stealing my lunch, is it ok to make a cat food sandwich? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 7, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169 "2009-09-07T16:15:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/281 "2009-09-11T16:30:18Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > So Digi - did anyone call in sick today? > > I once buttered a yellow kitchen sponge that looked similar to a piece of toast - my mates dad took a huge horse-toothed bite out of it. This made me laugh at a time I was pretending _not_ to be in my office. Thanks, **Bam** … my cover is blown. To the OP, and **Ice** … I hear these complaints on occasion, and I have to tell you I am completely amazed by them. I’ve never been a lunch-taker, because I hate how the fridge makes everything too cold and the spread makes the bread soggy. But I always wondered about the psychology of lunch-stealers, especially in professional settings where you can be reasonably assured that everyone earns enough to a) make their own lunch or b) buy one. I figure it must be some mental power play. Like, “Hey, I’m increasing shareholder profits by coming in ten minutes early, so I deserve to have one of my less hardworking co-workers feed me lunch.” And **Ice’s** explanation fits perfectly with my experiences with teenagers. They don’t think, much of the time. Assigning logic to teen behavior in all instances is a sure fire way to make _yourself_ insane. Here’s the solution to all of your problems, though, folks. Get yourself one of those insulated bags made out of backpack material. If you’re over the age of 12 and you do not work on a construction site, do not buy a lunchbox. Then get yourself a luggage lock. Preferably a combo that you can reset. Affix the lock to the top of the bag. If you have the right lock, it should prevent the thief from opening the bag, and it requires minimum fuss on your part. I understand the urge for revenge, but if you have to expend energy making a cat food/dog shit/habanero-and-mustard sarnie, what revenge is that? I’m too lazy to intentionally fuck over people. The other thing… I distrust other people prepping food, especially not professionals. So I can eat at Wendy’s but I am never certain if Joe Bloggs down the hall masturbates before making his lunch, or if Sally picks her scabby earlobes with the knife she uses in the dijon mustard. Ergo you won’t catch me eating other people’s food, for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/282 "2009-09-12T01:02:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Ok, let us assume the OP gets a great victory by tricking the thief into eating cat food and they vomit, get sick and never steal the OP’s lunch again. What has the OP gained? > > Not the ability to eat his lunch. Because we have established that thief can get to the OP’s lunch in more or less complete secrecy. And, we can assume that the thief does not have a lot of scruples. > > **What’s to stop him from striking back at the OP and poisoning or otherwise trapping the OP’s lunch?** > > In other words, the OP gets revenge at the cost of never again being able to keep his lunch in the fridge again. Not to mention a small chance of being sued or fired. Or maybe the thief decides on other, more dangerous forms of revenge- hey OP- where do you park your car? Maybe the thief has access to the OP’s home address? The OP has already lost the ability to eat his lunch. Same for all of the latter points. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/283 "2009-09-12T01:16:00Z")
> [@Fell\_through\_the\_Ice](#): > > For a second there I considered starting a “Ask the Lunch Thief” thread, but then I thought better of it. > > For anyone who missed my earlier posts, I was a lunch thief many years ago. I know it was wrong and I still feel bad about it. > > Feel free to ask me any questions. I would be glad to offer suggestions that would help people not have their lunches stolen. Why do you think that you know how to help people not have their lunches stolen? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/284 "2009-09-12T01:48:13Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > The OP has already lost the ability to eat his lunch. Same for all of the latter points. No, he could have secured his lunch in the fridge in some way or kept it at his desk in a cold bag. However, instead he choose to start a cycle of revenge with someone who holds all the cards. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/285 "2009-09-12T01:58:31Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > The OP has already lost the ability to eat his lunch. He has achieved revenge, and can secure his lunch from now on. Surely better than merely securing his lunch. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/286 "2009-09-12T02:17:13Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > He has achieved revenge, and can secure his lunch from now on. Surely better than merely securing his lunch. 🙂 No, not at all. See, the lunch thief now can get revenge back on the Op without worries- he can sabotage him at work, let the air out of his tires, or any of a myriad of things- some of which can get pretty scary. He likely knows who the OP is, and the Op now can’t even trap him. If in the past the Op “secured his lunch” and the thief got through, the worst the OP had to worry about was a stolen lunch. Now the Op has to worry about a \*tampered \*lunch. And the “tampering” could be very bad and very subtle. So, now the OP has to make sure his lunch is VERY secure. Revenge is childish, and in this case extremely foolish. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/287 "2009-09-12T02:27:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > He likely knows who the OP is, and the Op now can’t even trap him. Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/288 "2009-09-12T02:29:10Z")
I still say grind up some Viagra in the sandwich and then do a crotch check. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/289 "2009-09-12T02:42:09Z")
Right, this is why I don’t want to see the OP give up on finding out the culprit just yet. It could be that the cat food sammie smelled gross but the perp didn’t taste it and/or realize what it was. I tried to find an episode of Taxi on youtube where Alex Rieger is at someone’s apartment tasting what’s cooking. “This foie gras is great!”/“Uh, that’s cat food I’m making.” Maybe he/she figured it was some ethnic abomination. He/she may be pausing but later come back for more. For all we know, the perp went on vacation or took a couple sick :eek: days. If the offender is reasonably educated etc. maybe the OP got his message across, the perp felt reasonably ashamed, and it will end there. In order to tamper with a lunch, the person would have to both remove AND return the lunch, doubling the chance of being busted. Returning to the scene of the crime is a no-no. In this economy, a lot of people wouldn’t roll the dice on losing a job over it. However, when egos get involved even practical jokes can escalate beyond the original intent. If the person spit out cat food and was incensed, he/she might put a lot of creativity and effort into retaliating. I’d still want to know who did it, if possible. ---
**Author:** ![drpepper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@drpepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drpepper)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/290 "2009-09-12T03:02:48Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I don’t know how you have the temerity to keep posting to this thread when you, twenty-some years ago, stole some lunches and now apologize for it. This is funny and made me lol. Seriously, the stealing lunch as a teenager rings very, very true to me. As a teenager I once stole a friend’s box of fundraiser candy bars; never told her. I did it because, well, I was hungry and was driven to have something sweet. This was at school. I remember sometimes, but not always, having cash to buy lunch in the cafeteria, so some days I went all day without eating and was really really hungry by the end of the day. I don’t remember why I didn’t always have cash; I had a job, virtually no expenses/extravagances, and remember having a lot of money in my personal savings account; I also had parents who would have gladly given me cash for lunch had I bothered to ask in the morning. In retrospect, it makes no sense. But I remember having that primal, gnawing hunger CONSTANTLY, and stealing to satisfy it, at the time, seemed like nothing. It does seem really weird now that I’m typing it out. But it’s true. So I’m a little puzzled at **Contrapuntal** ’s doubting the veracity of our fellow Doper’s personal account; but whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/291 "2009-09-12T03:16:42Z")
> [@drpepper](#): > > Seriously, the stealing lunch as a teenager rings very, very true to me. > > As a teenager I once stole a friend’s box of fundraiser candy bars; never told her. Teenagers just do dorky things for no reason. I know I did, probably worse than stealing lunches. That’s just part of what makes them teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/292 "2009-09-12T03:17:17Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I still say grind up some Viagra in the sandwich and then do a crotch check. That would only work if you hired a Thai Bar Girl to inspire the staff. 🙂 …which might not be a bad thing… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/293 "2009-09-12T03:30:55Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > Right, this is why I don’t want to see the OP give up on finding out the culprit just yet. I second that. Keep your lunch secure for the time being, but leave an entrapment lunch in the fridge and check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/294 "2009-09-12T04:09:38Z")
The only problem I see with hot sauce is, what if said thief really, _really_ likes hot food? What then? I vote for cat food – but mix it up with dog food, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/295 "2009-09-12T04:11:59Z")
Did we determine that the Bad Guy knows who the OP is? ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/296 "2009-09-12T04:13:06Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > This made me laugh at a time I was pretending _not_ to be in my office. Thanks, **Bam** … my cover is blown. snipped Sorry **Hips** - didn’t realise you were bunking off work AT work! ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/297 "2009-09-12T04:16:17Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Did we determine that the Bad Guy knows who the OP is? I don’t think that’s established. In the interest of safety, it seems wisest to assume the perpetrator knows. It would be great if not, but absent knowing that for certain… ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/298 "2009-09-12T04:23:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Cat food smells so awful But on the other hand, tuna fish smells exactly the same. Which brings us to a question. Does catfood smell like tunafish or does tunafish smell like catfood? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/299 "2009-09-12T06:37:39Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > I don’t think that’s established. In the interest of safety, it seems wisest to assume the perpetrator knows. It would be great if not, but absent knowing that for certain… The Op sez he’s the only one who puts their lunch in that fridge. Thus, it’s pretty certain. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169/300 "2009-09-12T10:41:35Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > But on the other hand, tuna fish smells exactly the same. Which brings us to a question. Does catfood smell like tunafish or does tunafish smell like catfood? Tuna that is packaged for human consumption doesn’t smell nearly as strongly as canned cat food, even non-tuna cat food. I think that the cat food manufacturers purposely make it extra smelly to tempt cats. As the feeder of three cats, though, I will tell you that cats will gladly consume tuna packaged for human consumption, as well as that which is packaged for feline consumption. Their only complaint is that they usually don’t get as much as they’d like. Cat food tuna seems to be made of the darker tuna flesh. Human food tuna is light or white tuna. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-stealing-my-lunch-is-it-ok-to-make-a-cat-food-sandwich/509169.md?page=16)