When living or working in a place with a shared kitchen, it is good etiquette not to eat other people’s food without asking.

What would you do if you found that someone was stealing your food every time you left the area?

That is what happened to the research intern in this story, so she got some very spicy extracts to surprise whomever it was that was taking her food.

Check it out!

Some like it hot 🌶️

I had taken a R&D internship for a food company over the summer in Keokuk (the armpit of Iowa for those unfamiliar).

For housing accommodations the company had set me up in the local college dorm that was previously a retirement home, so it basically had individual rooms and bathrooms, but one large commercial kitchen.

It was summer and the school didn’t have a summer program, but allowed 2 fall students to move in at the beginning of the summer.

One was rarely there, but the other was constantly in the building and often times had multiple friends over.

Why do people do this?

Given the kitchen set up, we all stored our food there and it’s a pretty no brainer you shouldn’t take from others.

But immediately I had various food items going missing or being consumed regularly (sodas, empty boxes of cereal put back on the shelf, etc.).

I initially posted a sign on the fridge to not eat others food and also confronted both about having food go missing after the sign was up.

It didn’t stop whomever from stealing my food (particularly when I’d head out of town for weekends).

After complaining about the situation to my manager during my job they helped formulate the perfect ProRevenge.

Given I was doing R&D work on food products, I was responsible for getting various ingredient samples to use for new recipes.

Now this is a good idea.

My manager suggested I get some capsaicin extracts for my “research” even though we weren’t doing anything in that realm for flavor profiles.

Well I found a company that had various scoville unit extracts and I asked for a variety to see what worked best for our applications.

Well did they deliver with some small 2 ounce bottles of 50K, 100K, and 250K scoville extracts!

That will give them quite a surprise.

I ended up putting the 250K in a travel sized spray bottle (mixed with some water to help as a carrier).

Wearing gloves and a mask (borrowed from work) doctored the common food items being stolen with a liberal spraying of my mixture (mainly cereal, chips, crackers, jug of milk and the lip/top of a few soda cans).

For the snacks I actually put some into a separate bag and left them open to dry before mixing back into the original packaging.

I did this in a different dorm room in my wing as I know well enough how potent this can be in enclosed spaces.

I did this right before another trip out of town and when I returned I found some of the chips and cereal and milk was missing plus 2 of the 3 cans of soda I had doctored.

It’s too bad there weren’t cameras to catch this on video.

I never got to see the result and no one ever said anything, but none of my food went missing for the remaining month of my stay.

I hope the experience was enlightening for them and they still remember the time they played with 🌶️ 🔥.

Great revenge, people who steal food out of a public fridge are the worst.

Read on to see what other people had to say in the comments.

Apparently this can be illegal?

This commenter says 250,000 scoville is not that hot.

Here is someone who has another solution.

Now this would be spicy!

Here is another food technologist.

They got what they deserved.

And hopefully they learned a lesson that will last a lifetime.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.