Day 117: Hoarders in Jamaica, NY

Today, at lunchtime, we found this in the cupboard at work:




Nasstyyyy!!!

Rich had to send out a mass email out. Which turned out to be an amusing break from my otherwise irritable day.

For your viewing pleasure:

Dear Staff,

Today, after eating my lunch, I opened the cabinet above the espresso machine to find an open tub of cream cheese, with a knife in it, a half eaten bagel, and a half drank cup of coffee. There is a picture attached.

I want to reiterate that… someone, at some point either today or yesterday, took the cream cheese from the fridge, started on a bagel, poured a cup of coffee, and then put the cream cheese, the half eaten bagel (with no plate) and the coffee in the cupboard for reasons passing understanding.

I imagine that it would be an exercise in futility to delve into how gross that is, so I’m going to give the person who did this the benefit of the doubt and assume a perfectly logical explanation. Therefore, let me address the following possible reasons:

1.) Fear of insufficient bagels/coffee: Every Monday, we usually have about a dozen bagels or so left over. These bagels are typically stored in the red tin in the lunch room or in a bag for anyone who fancies a bagel the next day. Almost invariably, the remainder of these bagels are thrown out by Tuesday, as we often have a bagel surplus. For those of you who do not have faith in the number of bagels and want to save one or two for later consumption, that is of course your prerogative. We have aluminum foil and a refrigerator which will aid you in saving a bagel for a later time. As for the coffee, we actually have a contract with a vendor who supplies our coffee on a constant basis. Adrienne has this vendor on speed dial, and as our stock of coffee runs low, she orders more. This system is, thus far, highly effective. The coffee may not be the best coffee in the world, but the one thing we can guarantee is that we will continue to do our best to keep everyone as caffeinated as they require, except for Brea. We prefer to keep Brea decaffeinated for safety reasons.

2.) A preference for aged cheeses: Cheesemakers, also known as ‘kaas’ date back to the ancient Egyptians and have perfected the craft of culturing and aging milk in order to make cheese. Cream cheese is a dairy product made from cow’s milk. Unlike other soft cheeses, however, it does not undergo any sort of aging process and is meant to be consumed fresh. Modern technology allows us to prolong the longevity of the cheese’s ‘freshness’ through vacuum sealing and refrigeration. If cream cheese is not refrigerated, like other milk products, it will spoil due to the bacteria in sugary butterfat converting lactose to glucose and galactose which curdles the milk within the cheese. Moreover, mold thrives in a moist dark spot, like a kitchen cabinet, and uncovered, unrefrigerated cream cheese is a perfect home to a new colony of mold. This also produces a rather unpleasant aroma which challenges the wisdom that ‘the stinker the cheese, the tastier.’

I will mention, to those of you who didn’t work here during the summer of ‘mousepocolypse’ that this building does customarily receive certain small furry visitors. Every so often, one of these buggers still manages to make it past the mousetraps, and the warehouse pigeons and into the office at which point the lovely ladies of the accounting department scream uncontrollably and jump onto their desks. To a mouse, a half eaten bagel and a tub of warm cream cheese is an exciting discovery and will only result in crowds of mice invading our office. If the mouse could cut a bill of lading or issue an arrival notice, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Finally, as a word of caution, these things were next to the espresso cups. Vincenzo’s espresso cups. The idea of mouse droppings or rotten cream cheese on, in or around Vincenzo’s espresso cups makes Vincenzo angry…. very, very angry… I knew a guy once who messed with Vincenzo’s espresso cups, we had to send his body back in 4 ziploc bags… true story.

So, as a courtesy to your fellow co workers, please remember to keep food, especially perishable food, in the fridge and try to exercise some judgment with regards to where you place your half eaten breakfast.

-R

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