The Crime Rate's Going Up

We haven't had a lot of trouble at my office with people stealing food from the refrigerators. We get a rash of lunch robberies every now and again, but it usually ends quickly. I hadn't heard of anything lately, which is why I was surprised when something I put in the refrigerator disappeared. It wasn't a big deal, really, but yesterday I went out for lunch and got baked rigatoni. I couldn't eat the whole thing, so I got a doggy bag, and when I got back to the office, I put it in the fridge. I'm not used to keeping leftovers in the refrigerator, so when it was time to go home, I forgot about it and left it there. I remembered it on the way home, though, and figured that I could get it the next day. There wasn't enough to actually make lunch out of it today, so I brought another lunch and intended to get the rigatoni at the end of the day. But when I returned to the refrigerator, it was gone.

Although it would be rare to find a valid excuse to eat somebody else's food in the common refrigerator, I can understand why somebody might want to swipe a premium frozen dinner or something. But why would anybody want to take the leftovers scraped off the plate of somebody you don't even know who it is? That just seems very weird to me. I don't think I'm that upset that my food was taken (although it's bothering me enough that I'm writing about it here, I guess), because there wasn't really that much--maybe three or four mouthfuls--and it had been good, but obviously I wasn't so wrapped up in finishing the food in the doggy bag that I remembered to bring it home last night. But it just strikes me as odd that anybody would take half-eaten food they don't even know the history of. If I'd been having lunch with whoever took it (and how do I know I wasn't?), I can't imagine that when I stopped eating they'd have suggested switching plates so they could finish it. (Although, now that I think of it, maybe it was one of my lunch companions--at least they'd have known how good it looked and smelled.)

I'll have to pay attention next week to see if we've got a serial lunch thief on our hands. And if we do, I'll be curious to see whether this person mostly takes leftovers or new meals.