To Catch A Thief

I feel sorry for whoever steals my coffee next.

Since not much was left after the most recent act of thievery, I decided the last bit could be sacrificed. Yes, it means giving up a few pots of coffee, which is much harder to do than it sounds (at least, it is for G), but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the cause of the greater good.

And in this case, catching the coffee thief is the greater good.

Yes, I do love my coffee, thank you very much. I'd take it in an I.V. if [CoffeeShop] offered one.

Anyway ...

Last night I made a quick stopover to visit the folks. While there I made sure to drop in on the old medicine cabinet. Old people always have lots of powders to loosen up what cannot otherwise be loosened, so to speak. And to prove that Lady Luck is indeed my bitch, the winning powder just so happened to be - you guessed it - a deep, rich, and dark shade of coffee brown. Oh, fair lady, how I do adore thee!

Today I kept a close eye on the coffee tin, as much as time would allow. And sure as sunrise, after having to work Ref for an hour, I returned to the office to find the coffee tin at an even lower level. Oh yeah!

I still don't know who the thief is, but I can guarandamntee you that person will not be quite 'in sync' throughout the evening. Tomorrow, someone will inevitably complain about having been mysteriously ill the night before, and I will know exactly who it was, or be in position to find out what committee meetings in which coffee might have been served that person may have attended, and from there who served the coffee at said meeting.

Either way, I will know.

But will the thief know that I know?

That chance is so fat it makes Albert look like Slim Jim, baby.

Simply put: there is no way in Hell the thief will know that I know. The thief may wonder IF - but an 'if' isn't a 'know', and knowledge is power and power is really all that counts in the business of the upper hand.

To the thief I will remain quiet; I will not let on that the coffee was compromised, or that it was I who compromised it. Rather, I will tuck this small victory away, and retain the knowledge of the thief's identity for future advantage. I have Hand, as in Upper. Let the thief wonder why his or her ass became Niagara Falls for a night.

More than likely, the thief will call it a mysterious illness.

Maybe, if he or she is smart, the thief will call it karma.

Me, I call it justice.