A Coworker Had Been Stealing My Expensive Lunches for a Month. I Added Safe Food Coloring to My Meal, and During the Meeting, the Thief Smiled with Blue Teeth
— Who ate my lunch again?
I sent the message to our department’s work chat and put my phone down on the edge of the desk. My fingers were trembling slightly from hunger and anger. It was half past one. Lunch break was almost over, and I was standing in front of the open office refrigerator, staring at an empty shelf. My green glass container was gone.
Again.
For the third time that month.
My phone vibrated briefly.
“Anna, maybe you forgot it at home?” Sveta from accounting wrote.
“I saw her put it in the fridge this morning,” Dasha, the secretary, replied.
“Colleagues, let’s respect each other. If someone accidentally took the wrong container, please return it,” our HR manager joined in.
I closed the refrigerator door, walked over to the water cooler, and poured myself some hot water. My stomach responded with a dull, nagging pain. I have an autoimmune intestinal disease, and I was going through a flare-up. I couldn’t eat food from the cafeteria, snack on cookies, or order pizza with my coworkers. My doctor had prescribed an extremely strict diet: plain steamed meat without preservatives, certain types of vegetables, and lactose-free cream.
Each lunch cost me around five hundred rubles because I bought the meat directly from farmers, not even counting the time I spent preparing it. But more importantly, skipping a meal meant that by evening I would be lying on the couch doubled over in pain.
That evening at home, I silently sliced zucchini while my husband sat at the table scrolling through the news on his phone.
“So somebody ate it. Big deal,” he said without looking up from the screen. “Why are you making such a tragedy out of a piece of meat? You could’ve bought some kefir and a bun from the cafeteria.”
I carefully placed the knife on the cutting board.
“Vitya, I can’t have kefir and a bun. The pain gets so bad afterward that I can barely breathe. You know that. And it’s not just a piece of meat. I order that farm-raised turkey in advance. It’s expensive. And it’s my food.”
“Put a note on the container,” my husband shrugged. “Good Lord, this is like kindergarten. You’re all adults working in an office, and you’re getting worked up over some meat patties. It’s your own fault. You should’ve hidden the container farther back in the fridge.”
He stood up and went into the other room.
I remained alone in the kitchen. A heavy, sticky sense of hurt churned inside my chest.
It was always the same. When someone crossed your boundaries, the people closest to you often responded not with support but with, “It’s your own fault.”
You put it in the wrong place. You said the wrong thing. You’re overreacting.
I walked over to the spice cabinet.
On the top shelf was a box of baking supplies. My daughter had been interested in making cakes to order before moving to another city, and she had left some of her equipment behind.
Among the piping tips and molds stood a small bottle.
Gel food coloring.
The color was called “Deep Blue.”
The label said: “Highly concentrated. Safe for consumption. Washes off skin within two to three days.”
I picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cap. The coloring was thick and looked almost black.
It had no taste.
No smell.
The next day, I prepared my favorite steamed turkey patties. I made a white cream sauce with Provençal herbs to go with them.
When the patties had cooled slightly, I filled a syringe with the blue gel food coloring. Carefully, trying not to damage its shape, I inserted the needle deep into the center of one patty and slowly injected the dye.
I placed that patty at the edge of the container so I wouldn’t accidentally eat it myself.
The patties looked incredibly appetizing, and I hoped whoever had developed a taste for my lunches would take the bait. I poured sauce over everything, sealed the lid tightly, and put the container in my bag.
That morning at the office, I deliberately placed the container on the middle shelf of the refrigerator.
The patties beneath the white sauce looked tempting.
The morning dragged on.
At twelve o’clock, we had a major marketing department meeting scheduled. It was being led by our commercial director, Ilya Sergeyevich—a man who earned half a million rubles a month and drove a brand-new SUV.
He loved talking about corporate ethics, about how we were “one big family,” and about how important honesty was in business.
At eleven thirty, I went into the kitchen.
My glass container was gone.
I returned to my desk, opened my laptop, and waited.
My heart was beating steadily. I felt neither fear nor doubt.
Only a cold certainty that I was right.
At five minutes to twelve, we started gathering in the conference room. Sveta brought her notebook. Dasha arranged glasses of water.
Ilya Sergeyevich entered precisely at noon. He was in a good mood, wearing an expensive light-colored suit with a folder of documents tucked under his arm.
“All right, colleagues, let’s begin,” he said, sitting down at the head of the table. “Our quarterly results show a slight decline in leads. I want each of you to…”
He looked around the room and flashed his trademark broad smile.
Dead silence fell over the conference room.
Sveta gasped softly and covered her mouth with her hand.
Dasha stared at our boss without blinking.
Ilya Sergeyevich’s teeth were blue.
Not slightly stained.
Bright, neon blue.
The edges of his lips had also turned a distinctly dark, inky shade.
He looked as though he had just drunk ink straight from a printer.
“What is it?” he frowned when he noticed our reactions. “Anna, why are you looking at me like that? Didn’t you prepare the report?”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“The report is ready, Ilya Sergeyevich. But apparently someone ate my lunch again. And that someone was you.”
He blinked.
His blue lips twitched.
“What does your lunch have to do with anything? We’re discussing quarterly performance.”
“It has everything to do with it, Ilya Sergeyevich,” I said evenly. “Because I added a powerful food coloring to my lunch—the lunch that was stolen from the refrigerator again today.”
The room became so quiet that we could hear the air conditioner humming.
Ilya Sergeyevich froze.
His hand slowly rose to his face. He rubbed his lips with his fingers and looked at his fingertips.
They were blue.
The boss’s face turned blotchy red, sharply contrasting with his blue mouth.
“You… What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His voice cracked. “You’re poisoning employees?! That’s a criminal offense!”
“It’s gel food coloring approved for consumption,” I replied calmly.
I took the bottle out of my pocket and placed it on the table.
“It’s harmless. It’s suitable for children’s cakes. I have the receipt from the store and a quality certificate I downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. I simply happen to like blue sauce. It was my food, in my container. I didn’t force anyone to eat it.”
Ilya Sergeyevich jumped to his feet.
“This was a setup!” he roared, spraying saliva. “You’re fired! Both of you! Everyone is fired!”
He stormed out of the conference room, slamming the glass door so hard that it rattled.
The rest of the day, the atmosphere in the office was tense.
Nobody worked.
Our unofficial work chats were buzzing. People sent me private messages. Some laughed, while others advised me to submit my resignation before I could be officially fired for misconduct.
I sat at my desk and methodically filled in spreadsheets.
I felt awful.
My stomach was hurting again because I had missed lunch, and my hands had grown cold.
But I had no intention of resigning.
I hadn’t done anything illegal.
Toward evening, I was summoned to the CEO’s office.
Ilya Sergeyevich was already there.
He sat in the corner of the sofa with his lips tightly pressed together. He had apparently tried to scrub away the coloring, but had only smeared the blue across his chin, making him look like a miserable clown.
The CEO, Pavel Viktorovich, was a stern man who wasn’t known for sentimentality.
He looked at me over the top of his glasses.
“Anna Nikolayevna. Sit down.”
I sat in the visitor’s chair.
“Ilya Sergeyevich claims that you put poison into communal food.”
“That’s a lie, Pavel Viktorovich,” I replied clearly and deliberately. “First of all, the food wasn’t communal. It was inside my personal green container, which I brought from home. Second, it wasn’t poison. Here’s the bottle, and here’s a printout listing the ingredients. It’s confectionery food coloring. I added it to my own food because I felt like it. Ilya Sergeyevich stole that food. For the fourth time this month. Considering the cost of the farm products I need for medical reasons, the total damage is more than two thousand rubles.”
Pavel Viktorovich turned toward Ilya.
“Ilya. Why were you stealing someone else’s turkey patties? Your salary is high enough for you to hire a personal chef.”
Ilya Sergeyevich shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.
“Pavel Viktorovich, you don’t understand! I… I was conducting a test! I wanted to see how the team reacts to stressful situations. It was a team-building experiment. I was planning to reimburse her!”
The CEO sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“An experiment, you say. Ilya, you’re a grown man, but you’re behaving like some rat in a student dormitory. You’re stealing food from your subordinate.”
“I took it by accident! I confused it with mine!” the commercial director said, desperately changing his story while gesturing with his blue-stained hands. Apparently, he had unsuccessfully tried to scrub his mouth clean in the restroom.
“Does your wife pack farm-raised turkey for you in containers?” Pavel Viktorovich narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even bring food from home. You eat lunch at restaurants.”
Silence filled the office.
Ilya Sergeyevich stared at the floor.
“Anna Nikolayevna,” the CEO said, turning toward me. “On behalf of the company, I apologize for what happened. You may return to work. There is absolutely no question of you being fired.”
I nodded, stood up, and walked toward the door.
“And you, Ilya, stay,” I heard the CEO say in an icy voice behind me.
The next day, Ilya Sergeyevich called in sick.
He didn’t return to work a week later.
Or two weeks later.
Rumors spread around the office that the CEO couldn’t tolerate such disgraceful behavior from a member of senior management and had offered Ilya the opportunity to leave quietly.
Later, Dasha from reception confirmed it.
He had signed a mutual termination agreement.
That same evening, after everything had been resolved, I came home.
My husband was watching television.
I went into the kitchen, took out the turkey, and began preparing dinner for myself.
“So, did they fire you for your little stunt with the food coloring?” Vitya asked with a faint smirk as he came into the kitchen for some water.
“No,” I said without looking up from the vegetables I was cutting. “They fired the person who was stealing.”
My husband raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Seriously? They actually fired him over food?”
“Over stealing and lying.”
Vitya stood there for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Listen, that seems a little harsh. The guy lost his job over a container of meat patties. You could’ve forgiven him. So what if the guy ate your food?”
I put down the knife.
I turned toward my husband and looked him straight in the eye.
“Vitya. My boundaries are not ‘so what.’ My health is not ‘so what.’ And if someone thinks they can take what belongs to me and then pretend there’s nothing wrong with it, they’re going to face the consequences. And anyone who says it was my own fault is wrong too.”
He opened his mouth, apparently intending to answer.
But then he seemed to notice something in my expression.
He turned off the faucet, silently nodded, and left the kitchen.
I remained alone.
I put the finished meal on a plate and sat down at the table.
The food tasted good.
Without any blue coloring.
I ate slowly, feeling the tension of the past few weeks gradually leave my body.
For the first time in a long while, there was no pain in my stomach.
And inside, I finally felt calm and at peace.