Sunday, December 21, 2008

Trash for Supper

This morning I did the same thing I do every day when I come to work, I put my lunch (a salad) and my supper (gnocchi w/sun dried tomatoes and spinach) in the fridge. Both items were placed at the front of the top shelf, the same place I put my food every day.

At lunch time I went to get my salad. I noticed that my supper was gone, so I began to second guess myself. Had I left it in my bag? I came to my desk and checked my bag...no supper. I mentally revisited my morning and repacked my bag in my head. I distinctly remembered packing my supper on the bottom, salad on the top. I went back and checked the fridge again, TWICE!!! No supper.

I was stumped, there were tons of other plastic food dishes in the fridge, some that had been in there for a long period of time shoved to the back. Mine was not amongst them. I stood in the middle of the kitchen wondering. My eyes settled on the trash bin. There were crumpled donut boxes on the top, and I wondered some more. Could my supper be in there? Would someone be that ignorant? For giggles and grins I decided to look, never expecting to find my supper in there.

I moved the donut boxes and to my amazement I saw the lid of my container buried down below, under coffee grounds and crushed muffins. I reached in and moved the container to whee I could see it. It was covered in gooey garbage. I couldn't believe it. Who would be so mean?

I could have washed the container off and eaten the food, but at that point I couldn't trust that the food itself hadn't been tampered with. If someone was callous enough to put my food in the garbage, what else would they do?

I might have thought it was an innocent oversight had the rest of the containers in the fridge been "cleaned"out, especially the ones in the back. Had my food not been frozen still, I could understand how someone "might" have thought it wasn't fresh. If it had been at the back of the fridge with all the other old containers I might have understood how someone could have thought it was trash.

However, given the fact that it was the only container thrown in the garbage, it was at the front of the fridge beside other fresh food and it was still frozen I don't think it was much of an "accidental oversight".

Call me paranoid, but I think my food was thrown out on purpose, it's kind of hard to think otherwise. It sickens me that grown people could behave in this manner. It makes me doubt my co-workers and feel as though my food is not safe in the fridge. I think I may just start packing my food into a small cooler that I can keep under my desk and forgo the fridge.

What would you think?

2 comments:

Rebecca Foster said...

This is awful!

(And I feel awful that I am just now seeing this post about it! I could have sworn last time I checked there was not a new one!)

I hate to think someone would do that, but that is pretty weird that only yours would be thrown away, I agree. And why just the supper, not lunch too?

I suppose it's possible someone made a mistake, but the employee fridge is a dangerous place anyway, I like your cooler idea!

Debra said...

Just popping in to say Happy New Year! May the coming year bring you lots of health, love and joy.

Hugs,
Debbie