Some people like spicy food and others don’t. Even for people who like spicy food, there’s usually a limit of how spicy the food can be before it’s no longer enjoyable.

In today’s story, one man who loves spicy food uses his collection of hot sauce to sleuth out the break room food thief, but the revenge ends up way more intense than that!

Let’s see how the story plays out…

That left a bad taste in his mouth

Until April this year my husband, lets call him Mike, worked in a warehouse for a big, international furniture company in southern Germany.

He liked the work, even if it was hard labour carrying 150kg (330lbs for the Americans) pieces of furniture around.

Because of this, the staff turnover was pretty high.

One of his colleagues, we will name him Steve, started at the same time as my husband. They weren’t friends as Mike didn’t like him, but he respected him as a hard worker.

Here’s how lunch breaks worked…

Due to customers coming in all the time, the warehouse staff didn’t have required breaks, they just took their lunch break when it was possible.

Some used the break room with the basic kitchen, some went out to eat, go to the supermarket on the other side of the road or did errands in the 60 minutes they had.

But either way, you had to clock out and back in. This will be relevant later.

Some of the food in the break room refrigerator went missing.

Soon they realized that brought in lunches went missing from the fridge in the break room, as did sweets they had bought to share and also drinks.

Since it was rare that two of the workers took their break at the same time, they weren’t sure who stole them.

They also were not allowed to bring up a camera.

So Mike and the warehouse manager decided to take matters in their own hands.

Mike loves spicy food.

Once in a while when it was slow, they decided to order food. Mostly pizza, sometimes burgers. And my husband (me too) loves hot, spicy food.

I’m actually pretty sure that there is no blood in him, that has to be hot sauce flowing around :D.

Anyways, we have a nice assortment of powders and sauces, ranging from a little tickling to “will turn your butt in a johnny cash song if you dont get that surgically removed right now!!”.

Hubbs of course had some of the sauces at work.

Mike ordered pizza.

You all know where this is heading, right?

When the thefts got more and more regular, they decided to order pizza – just Mike and the manager, the others didn’t want to or had something else.

The pies got delivered and smelled delicious.

Miraculously, both my husband and his manager were able to take their lunch at the same time and enjoyed their pizza, but didn’t finish it.

It’s time for some spicy revenge!

Mike took out one of his sauces with a scorching 2 million Scoville (for those not familiar: regular Tabasco has about 2.500-5.000 Scoville) and distributed a generous amount on the leftovers, which blended in great with the red tomatoe sauce.

Then they left to have a smoke and continue working.

They hadn’t had a chance to clock in again when Steve emerged from the break room, running for the bathroom, head in a very nice shade of red, gagging.

When he came back out a few minutes later, he was white as a sheet, reeking of vomit and left without a word to get something to drink from the supermarket.

Steve didn’t clock out.

Just then the local stores manager, boss of the warehouse manager, happened to drop by.

He noticed Steve is absent and did not clock out – the big no-no.

What nobody knew: Steve had already two write-ups for being absent without clocking out. If you get three write-ups (“Abmahnung” in German) for the very same reason, you can be terminated without notice.

Steve was fired.

When Steve returned, clutching 3 packs of milk closely to his chest, the third write-up and the termination was already printed and ready to be signed.

Steve left immediately.

He now works in another warehouse, where a good friend of mine is employed, too.

None of their food has gone missing yet.

That is some great revenge! Not only did they find out who was responsible for stealing the food, but he also lost his job and learned his lesson not to steal!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader put Steve’s situation into a song…

Another reader can appreciate the pain Steve felt.

This reader is tempted to feel bad for Steve.

This person loves spicy food too.

Steve deserved this revenge.

That was a painful way to learn not to steal, but he deserved it!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.