I teach in a middle school. We have custodians who work staggered shifts, with a few beginning work before the school opens, and a few who work about four hours after the rest of us leave for the day. I am almost always one of the last teachers to leave due to my job.

We have teachers who leave candy in their rooms for rewards (I truly hate that strategy), others who make use of the refrigerators in the workrooms to store their lunches or leftovers, and me, who happens to have an office separate from my classroom where I can keep my stuff fairly secure.

A few years ago some of the teachers start sending out emails complaining that their lunches were disappearing from the staff lounges. Not long after, a few more start complaining about candy or food taken from their classrooms. One morning I opened my office to see things that had been in my desk strewn across the floor, and a granola bar wrapper in the otherwise empty trash can.

Before leaving work that afternoon, I saw both evening custodians talking together in the hall. I walked up, and told them I didn’t appreciate whichever was stealing my food. There were two locked doors between everyone else and my stuff, so only someone with a key could steal from me. I mentioned they both had jobs and buy their own stuff.

Stealing is wrong.

Knock it off.

They both stammered “It wasn’t me.” But the next morning my stash had been hit again. Fine.

One of my brothers-in-law loves hot sauce. He used to put it on everything. I once tried to give him a sauce made from ghost peppers and habaneros. He tasted a drop, and said it was just too hot, so he gave it back. That bottle just sat at home, waiting to be useful.

I bought a candy bar. Snickers, because…poetic justice. They have a flap on the bottom of the wrapper where they are sealed, with the flap folded over to lay flat. I also bought a small bag of insulin syringes.

Before leaving work I sucked a few drops of hot sauce into a syringe. I carefully pierced the candy bar wrapper just at the crease under the flap. Three drops at each end. A few more in the middle. Into my desk drawer goes the bar, and I’m headed home for the evening. I snickered the whole trip, because I like symmetry.

The next day there is a nasty half-chewed piece of chocolatey- peanuty goo in my trash can. The rest of the bar had been thrown across my office. One of the evening custodians didn’t come to work that day. Stomach-flu, which kept him out for three days. Something about explosive diarrhea and severe stomach cramps. That custodian left our building not long after, and I have never had anything disappear from my room again.