As many of my readers may know, I work at a peace-building organization. My colleagues and I have been trained in conflict resolution, mediation techniques, and self-meditation practices. We're sort of like professional hippies out to fight the battles for peace with dialogue and understanding. Due to all of this training, we are all relatively calm individuals who can control our passions and express ourselves (mostly) via rational means even when discussing our passions.
But, there was "never a calamity ever so great" as to what happened in the office fridge "by mistake" (Yes, this culminates quotes from Tim Burton's opening of The Nightmare Before Christmas).
Last weekend, my colleagues and I hosted a two day training seminar for one of our regions of focus. We had an elaborate spread of food on the first day that left us with the most scrumptious looking leftovers; two gallons of salad, a gallon and a half of humus, a proportionate amount of pita bread, two sandwiches, and a packed box of baklava. Being that my colleagues and I are very busy in the office, it was exciting to think that we would not lose time (or money) on food that upcoming week because we had enough food for all of us for several days.
Monday rolled around and we were hosting a delegation from Burma/Myanmar - it was an all day and very important event. There was a lunch with the faculty at Columbia where I was the photographer. While I was really hungry, I didn't eat because it would have been horribly awkward for me to be filling my plate in the background while a long table full of diplomats, professors, and directors of major programs were having an intellectual discussion of how to assist ground efforts for peace and stability in Burma/Myanmar. There was all of that food in the office anyway.
After the lunch, there was a public lecture to which over 150 people attended, where our special guest was able to answer questions from the audience, a good number of which were from his country. All the while, I'm jumping around the enormous room, snapping away photos and ignoring the grumbling in my tummy. The lecture ended, the hands were shaken, the business cards exchanged and the time at last had come for me to sneak away and celebrate with pita, hummus, and baklava.
I excused myself from a potential informal post-event meeting and skipped off to the office. My head was feeling light, so I knew not to fool around, but to eat right away...this of course means that as opposed to working for an hour before eating, I only sent out approximately fifteen minutes worth of emails. Sent buttons pressed, I armed myself with a plastic spoon and plate, readying myself for the feast.
The fridge for our department is in the office two doors down and it happened to be unoccupied at the moment, so I grabbed the key from our office and went to the fridge. With all of this excitement built up, imagine my horror when all that stared back at me from the fridge was a liter of soy milk.
My heart dropped.
The food was gone.
It was one of those moments where I could not process the image of a clean, empty fridge before me. "It was there last night!" I thought to myself, "We stacked the remainders from yesterday around Saturday's food! I know we did this!"
But then it hit me and I knew exactly what happened without any fingerprinting kit or evidence necessary.
I closed the fridge. I locked the office door. I crossed the short hall to the trashcan across the way (still holding my spoon and plate, by the way). And there it was. In a tall, grey trash-bin, all of our food lay. It was a sad image - the trays of food were put to rest without having been given the chance to fulfill their purpose.
That was it. I charged back to the office and sent the following three texts to my colleague:
"The food is all gone"
"Only soy milk remains."
"I'm going home."
So I did. We work in peace-building in regions where people starving to death is normal and here in the first world, we throw away food if it takes up too much space or if it is starting to look bad. I was furious. Furious on three levels: one, I knew who did it - and this colleague did not ask us or anyone whose food was in the fridge and if it was okay if he threw it out; two, that food would have fed three people for a week; and, three, nothing was put in the fridge to take up the space made. The soy milk had already been in there - there was no point to taking out the food. I knew for a fact that as of the night before the food was in perfect condition.
One bus ride later, I felt like I was being ridiculous about the food, so I called my colleague to be talked down, but the complete opposite happened. She was equally as upset; her hopes for dinner had been smashed. She also knew instantly who it was that threw away all the food. We grumbled together about how we had to now purchase food and what our next steps should be, if any. My colleague decided to compose a professionally written email, asking if this colleague felt obliged to empty the fridge in the future, to ask around first. The email was diplomatically composed and should have settled everything.
(I did not lose sleep over this, just so that you know).
The next day, mid-morning came and the person in question responded to my colleague's email with a less than believable excuse:
It brought us a couple of laughs, regardless of our fury, but it was an exercise in our ability to remain calm. We did not have any confrontations and nor did we put the soy milk in a bowl of jello as retribution.
The great retribution, the thing that made it funny in the end: two days after all of the drama, my two colleagues and I were working away in the office, when completely out of the blue, the boss-man said, "Baklava doesn't go bad for like two weeks!"
And after a laugh, that was it (mostly).
Moral of the story: don't throw away other people's food (unless it is blatantly moldy) and don't let the actions of others distract you to the point of wanting to commit retribution. Retribution is like throwing gasoline on a fire - it only aggrandizes the situation. So readers, remember to take deep breaths and to find humor in any situation. There's always a sliver of hope for it.
After the lunch, there was a public lecture to which over 150 people attended, where our special guest was able to answer questions from the audience, a good number of which were from his country. All the while, I'm jumping around the enormous room, snapping away photos and ignoring the grumbling in my tummy. The lecture ended, the hands were shaken, the business cards exchanged and the time at last had come for me to sneak away and celebrate with pita, hummus, and baklava.
I excused myself from a potential informal post-event meeting and skipped off to the office. My head was feeling light, so I knew not to fool around, but to eat right away...this of course means that as opposed to working for an hour before eating, I only sent out approximately fifteen minutes worth of emails. Sent buttons pressed, I armed myself with a plastic spoon and plate, readying myself for the feast.
The fridge for our department is in the office two doors down and it happened to be unoccupied at the moment, so I grabbed the key from our office and went to the fridge. With all of this excitement built up, imagine my horror when all that stared back at me from the fridge was a liter of soy milk.
My heart dropped.
The food was gone.
It was one of those moments where I could not process the image of a clean, empty fridge before me. "It was there last night!" I thought to myself, "We stacked the remainders from yesterday around Saturday's food! I know we did this!"
But then it hit me and I knew exactly what happened without any fingerprinting kit or evidence necessary.
I closed the fridge. I locked the office door. I crossed the short hall to the trashcan across the way (still holding my spoon and plate, by the way). And there it was. In a tall, grey trash-bin, all of our food lay. It was a sad image - the trays of food were put to rest without having been given the chance to fulfill their purpose.
That was it. I charged back to the office and sent the following three texts to my colleague:
"The food is all gone"
"Only soy milk remains."
"I'm going home."
So I did. We work in peace-building in regions where people starving to death is normal and here in the first world, we throw away food if it takes up too much space or if it is starting to look bad. I was furious. Furious on three levels: one, I knew who did it - and this colleague did not ask us or anyone whose food was in the fridge and if it was okay if he threw it out; two, that food would have fed three people for a week; and, three, nothing was put in the fridge to take up the space made. The soy milk had already been in there - there was no point to taking out the food. I knew for a fact that as of the night before the food was in perfect condition.
One bus ride later, I felt like I was being ridiculous about the food, so I called my colleague to be talked down, but the complete opposite happened. She was equally as upset; her hopes for dinner had been smashed. She also knew instantly who it was that threw away all the food. We grumbled together about how we had to now purchase food and what our next steps should be, if any. My colleague decided to compose a professionally written email, asking if this colleague felt obliged to empty the fridge in the future, to ask around first. The email was diplomatically composed and should have settled everything.
(I did not lose sleep over this, just so that you know).
The next day, mid-morning came and the person in question responded to my colleague's email with a less than believable excuse:
"The food had fermented. It was quite literally a
health hazard." And that was all this colleague wrote.
There is no way that the food had fermented in a very cold refrigerator over the span of one night. If anything, I would believe the salad with vinegar dressing had turned sour, but everything else? In the words of any life long New Yorker, "C'maawn!"
(Translation for non-New Yorkers: "Come-on!")
It brought us a couple of laughs, regardless of our fury, but it was an exercise in our ability to remain calm. We did not have any confrontations and nor did we put the soy milk in a bowl of jello as retribution.
The great retribution, the thing that made it funny in the end: two days after all of the drama, my two colleagues and I were working away in the office, when completely out of the blue, the boss-man said, "Baklava doesn't go bad for like two weeks!"
And after a laugh, that was it (mostly).
Moral of the story: don't throw away other people's food (unless it is blatantly moldy) and don't let the actions of others distract you to the point of wanting to commit retribution. Retribution is like throwing gasoline on a fire - it only aggrandizes the situation. So readers, remember to take deep breaths and to find humor in any situation. There's always a sliver of hope for it.
PS -
It turns out that Bella Tuna is like her mom - she has a fondness for spicy foods. While I was chatting with a roommate, Bella leapt up onto the table, grabbed a chicken bone smothered in spicy sauce, and ran away with the bone to her secret lair - the dark underworld beneath my bed. I couldn't get her out from under the bed, but she emerged eventually to play in her litter box. After arming myself with a flashlight and several minutes of deep investigative searching, there was no chicken bone to be found. Knowing full well that she did not consume the entire chicken bone, I grabbed one of my other roommates as she was passing through the hall.
It turns out that Bella Tuna is like her mom - she has a fondness for spicy foods. While I was chatting with a roommate, Bella leapt up onto the table, grabbed a chicken bone smothered in spicy sauce, and ran away with the bone to her secret lair - the dark underworld beneath my bed. I couldn't get her out from under the bed, but she emerged eventually to play in her litter box. After arming myself with a flashlight and several minutes of deep investigative searching, there was no chicken bone to be found. Knowing full well that she did not consume the entire chicken bone, I grabbed one of my other roommates as she was passing through the hall.
"Jess," I started, knowing from the get-go that this was going to be an odd request. "I need your help. Bella stole a chicken bone."
Jess shook her head at Bella and called her naughty.
"She took it under the bed," I continued with the same dry, cautious tone. "I can't find it." Jess and I both laughed. "So, I know that this is an odd request, but could I ask you to lift the bed while I dive under to find the chicken bone?"
Jess happily offered her services of helping to lift my bed. Sure enough, smack in the middle, there it was.
With the object in question detained, the cat-burglar still on the loose, life was able to proceed to normalcy....the suspect is looming over the other chicken bones now, waiting, stalking, praying, for her next opportunity at thievery. What has my cat-child become?
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