Here’s an interesting tale of workplace revenge, and one that should serve as a warning: should you wish to steal lunches from the office fridge – and I hope you aren’t one of those people but we all know they’re out there – beware the retaliation of your wronged coworkers.

This story was posted on Reddit’s JusticePorn subreddit by toastedchillies, a hot sauce lover and “chilli head” who says he cooks his wife a delicious lunch every day to take to work with her. Alas, some unknown culprit was regularly helping themselves to the woman’s lunch.*

He writes, “I made her some buffalo wings for lunch to put in the fridge, They are really popular with her colleagues But I spiced them up just a little with some Blair’s 4am Reserve per wing with nice dusting of Ghost chilli powder for good measure.” He notes that one is “meant to dilute [Blair’s 4am Reserve] with 1 drop per 5 litres of liquid.” And according to HotSauce.com, it is “over 100 times hotter than a jalapeno pepper.” Ghost chillies, meanwhile, apparently keep getting hotter for about five minutes.

Toasted says he tried a couple of wings, just to make sure he wasn’t going to kill anyone, and then the wings, which were “real hot,” were strategically placed in the fridge to await their intended victim.

And so, “Just before lunch, there was a shrill from the kitchen, a young male colleague decided to help himself the my wife’s lunch which was clearly marked with her name. He ran to the toilet and vomited over and over. Apparently the moans sounded like he was dying. My wife just sat there innocently pretending nothing was wrong. Needless to say she has not lost a single lunch since.”

Nice.

The moral of the story? Get your own lunch.

Water cooler chat suggestion: My colleague, upon hearing this story, wondered whether the person who added the chillies to his wife’s lunch would actually be held responsible if something bad had happened. I said no way. Surely, he can’t be blamed if the lunch was ostensibly intended for someone else and the guy stole it. My colleague thinks this is a grey area, and that might be true. Whether you would be convicted in court would depend heavily on who the lawyers, judge and jury turned out to be. What do you think? In the hypothetical situation that something bad happens in a situation such as this one, should the guy who left the trap be held responsible? Discuss!

*Whether this story is actually true or not, I have no idea.