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By Jack Godbey

Columnist

Is there anything worse than having a co-worker who eats your lunch from the breakroom fridge? Since I’m a bit of a germaphobe, I don’t want anyone touching my food, much less eating it. My wife made a pan of homemade lasagna the other night, and the entire house attacked it like the Tasmanian Devil in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. In fact, it was all I could do to rescue a piece for my lunch at work the next day. I put it in a container and labeled it “broccoli,” thinking that would deter anyone looking to rob me of the delicious treat. I looked forward to lunch all morning only to find that when I went to lunch, my lasagna was gone. Yep, the lunch thief had stolen it right out of the breakroom fridge.

The next day, I brought a bologna sandwich, and to my surprise, it too had been a victim of the breakroom lunch thief. Lasagna is one thing, but you don’t mess with my bologna. It was time to get my revenge. The next day, I brought tacos that may or may not have had a filling of Alpo dog food. If one of my co-workers starts barking, I’ll know who the thief is.

I recall once there was an intern at my work who had to be the most annoying human being on the face of the earth. If he wasn’t whistling or tapping his pencil on the desk, he was demonstrating why he was going to be the next great rapper. Once he whipped out the fingernail clippers and clipped his nails in my office, I knew it was time for him to go. I told him that we were having an employee party and that he should go to the store and purchase all the 3% milk and seedless strawberries that he could find. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t seen him since. If anyone sees him wandering around lost in the grocery store, tell him I forget to add organic Pop Tarts to the list.

As I sit and think about revenge, I was happy to remember a story that my mother has told me a hundred times about revenge that happened before I was born. My mother had a ringer type washer sitting on the front porch where she would do the laundry of all her half dozen kids or so. My older sister was just barely old enough to start talking and made every step my mother made. While my mother would wash my sister’s clothes, she would joke with her that she was going to throw my sister’s clothes over the fence just to watch her throw a fit and stomp her little foot and yell, “No!”

My mother took her job of being a mother seriously and did it better than anyone could hope. Sadly, that job doesn’t pay very well, so she would often babysit other people’s kids for a little spending money even though she already had a houseful of her own kids to take care of. Finally, she saved up enough money to buy her a new coat that she saw in the store window. She loved that coat and treated it like it was made of gold.

The next day after buying the coat, my mother was back at it doing all the kids’ laundry, and again, she kidded with my sister about throwing her clothes over the fence. My sister, who usually never left her side, disappeared for a minute, and then there she came dragging my mother’s brand new coat across the yard and through the dirt, saying, “Me throw over fence”. My sister had enacted her revenge.