Blurring the lines between fact and fiction since 1979.
A deep affection for good storytelling has influenced my flash fiction that explores universal truths with curiosity and objectivity and light-hearted essays that find humor in the everyday.
“Petty Theft is a Dish Best Served Microwaved”
By Brandi Wills
The first job I was really terrible at was a really terrible job at a phone book company. I was an editor. A loose term if I ever heard one. I spent four hours a night, alone in a room, reading the phone book.
In the short few months I worked there, I barely spoke to more than two people. But it was at this job that I learned an immutable fact of life: food belonging to other people tastes so much better than your own.
Every office at one time or another has a fridge bandit. But lucky for me, this particular office had one before I started working there. I was warned on my first day that someone had been stealing food from the fridge, so it wasn’t a good idea to leave anything in there for too long. I remember thinking to myself at the time, “Why would someone do that? It’s so despicable!”
Then, about two weeks later, the watershed moment occurred: I came to work one night without my dinner. I couldn’t leave, and even if I could, I didn’t have any money for food. As I sat there, in the office kitchen, staring at the fridge from my seat at the little round table, I thought to myself, “What do other people do in this situation?” When all of a sudden, a note taped to the fridge caught my eye.
To whoever is stealing peoples foods,
You are a terrible human being, who has no respect for other’s stuff!
You shouldn’t not be able to work with others because you don’t care about anyone but yourself.
Stop eating our food!
Well, I knew what the Fridge Bandit would do if he forgot his dinner. He would just take someone else’s. But that wasn’t an option for me. I couldn’t do that. It’s disrespectful and malicious. Plus, look how much everyone hated this guy. I mean, they really hated him.
And then it dawned on me…
…They already hated him.
If food went missing, they would assume it was the Fridge Bandit who stole it.
In hindsight, I’d like to say that it took me a fair amount of time deciding to embrace a life of crime…but really, it took about 10 seconds.
I walked over to the fridge, quickly glanced around the kitchen, took a red pen from my pocket and corrected the preposterous punctuation and grammar errors in the note to the Fridge Bandit, then cautiously opened the door of the office refrigerator and peeked inside.
The room fell dark and the refrigerator light beamed brightly from within, casting film-noir shadows across the lunchroom. Cold air billowed from the edges of the fridge and slowly unfurled into a cumulus vapor along the floor. I looked into the glowing box of temptation and there, perched upon the second shelf, I saw it.
Chick. Mush. Alf.
I grabbed the Styrofoam container with these words Sharpied upon its lid and cracked it open to reveal a glorious bounty of bow-tie pasta, succulent grilled chicken, and thick-sliced portabella mushrooms in a creamy, peppery Alfredo sauce. My stomach growled deeply in yearning. I slowly drew the box near to me – my muscles impeded by guilt, but ultimately overpowered by desperate hunger and delectable temptation. I shut the refrigerator door and shoved the container into the microwave. The seconds stretched on for hours as I nervously tapped my foot, hoping no one would come in and catch me in my deed of shame.
The gods of office thievery smiled upon me that night and I absconded, undetected, with my ill-gotten gains to my desk and quickly shoveled enormous bites of pasta into my mouth. It was the most incredible taste I had ever tasted: wrong. I’d done something terrible to someone else. And it tasted amazing.
After I had finished my deliciously illicit meal and hidden the leftover container (evidence) in my backpack, I felt a twinge of shame. Someone had looked forward to that meal, and now they would never get to enjoy it. Attempting to assuage my guilt, I reasoned, “It was restaurant leftovers. They already got to enjoy it.”
Once I embraced this logic, I found it easier to take others’ dinners. Without being told, I came to know and understand the one true code of the fridge bandit – never stoop to a home-cooked meal. Over the next few weeks, my garbage can at home filled up with Styrofoam containers and foil wrappers brought home in my backpack at the end of my shift. A few crispy fish tacos from a Mexican eatery, a single slice of gourmet pizza from the Neapolitan pizzeria, a bit of sweet and sour pork from The China Palace… I practically needed a passport to open the refrigerator door.
I wrought nearly a month of blanketed terror on my coworkers. I enjoyed the spoils of my criminal endeavors, while letting the blame fall squarely on the shoulders of the Fridge Bandit. With two of us now working the same territory, it’s a wonder people kept bringing food to work with them. Actually, it’s a wonder they didn’t start spiking their leftovers with laxative and planting them as bait. But every tale of treachery has its dopey victims.
As you could have guessed, my final act of foodnapping was my downfall.
It was the holy grail of leftovers, and I went for it like the foolish, blinded, pie-in-the-sky teenager that I was – the boss’s sandwich. At the time I snagged it, I didn’t know it was his, but I was just tens of minutes away from the cards hitting the table.
Four inches into the leftover six-inch Italian sub (with dipping sauce, I might add), I heard him coming down the hall. There was no time to hide the last of the sandwich in my belly. I had to wrap it up and dispose of it. But my backpack was all the way across the room and there was no way I could get to it in time. I had to put the wrapper and the sandwich remains somewhere he could never find them.
So, in an act of desperate genius, I stuffed the wad of evidence down my pants.
My boss emerged through the door of my empty workroom, sauntering suspiciously, like a bloodhound, sniffing in the air and following the scent of ham and Capicola directly to me.
“It smells like my sandwich in here.”
“What?” was the only defense I could come up with on such short notice.
“My sandwich is missing from the fridge,” he said. “I just put it in there an hour ago, which means that someone on this shift took it.”
I stared for a moment. “What?” It seemed to work the first time, so I thought I’d try it out again.
He put on his best Sam Spade, stared me down and spelled it out for me. “My sandwich was stolen, and you smell like my sandwich.”
“Well, I don’t have your sandwich, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” I said, with much more clout than I deserved. “Do you see a sandwich in here?” I asked, and motioned to the desk. Exhibit A. I grabbed my trashcan and showed him the lack of contents. Exhibit B. “Maybe you should take a look around before you go accusing people of such terrible things.” Behind my self-righteous façade I was praying, God, please don’t let salami fall out of my pant leg.
My boss looked around the room with a slow, suspicious glare, saying nothing. And then he left. I don’t think he bought it, but he had nothing to go on.
While he never caught me with his sandwich, and no one but him ever suspected I was piggybacking off the Fridge Bandit’s enterprise, my boss was on to me after that incident. And it didn’t take him long to find out I’d been making long-distance phone calls to Texas and logging a few extra hours on the time clock each week, and he fired me.
When I look back at that job and the many contemptible things that happened, I have regrets, sure. Dozens of dinners were stolen in the name of the Fridge Bandit, and that’s not fair to him. I can only hope that he was smarter than me. I would like to think that he was never caught. That the spirit of foodnapping lives on through him, and that somewhere out there, right now, he is delighting in the savory satisfaction that is another person’s lunch.
“Burned”
By Brandi Wills
I was just five years old when I learned one of life’s most essential truths: You can never trust your family.
As the only child of two working parents, I spent my days at the home of my Aunt Nancy, my Uncle Wayne, and my five cousins. The two youngest straddled me by three years on either side – Wendy the older, and Robyn the younger. The three of us were inseparable and a good portion of our days together were spent in the backyard, playing “house” or “gymnastics” or some other lame diversion that allowed any one of us to assert dominance over the other two, if even just for a few hours.
Situated in Utah County, Utah – the bible belt of Mormon Country – we were surrounded by lots of other kids our age. But the only ones who ever paid us any attention were the two boys next door, the Palmer brothers. It was generally known that Brett Palmer was annoying. His older brother Brandon, however, was knows for being cute. So cute that we often invited Brett to hang out with us in the hopes that his mere presence would bait Brandon into our yard. However, on this particular day, it wasn’t working, so Wendy and Robyn went inside to play with the dollhouse their dad had just built for them. I felt bad for Brett, so I stayed a little longer to jump on the trampoline with him. All that jumping kept him from talking, so it was at least bearable. But I eventually tired and told him I was going inside, too.
“Wait!” he said, and started desperately searching for a reason I might stay. He fished in his pockets and pulled out his balled fist, clutching something tightly. “I found them in our backyard.” He slowly unfurled his fingers.
Dirt had settled into the creases of his palms and his fingernails were chewed down to the bit. Smack dab in the center of his grubby, open hand was a pack of matches. My pupils contracted slightly but I didn’t move, excitement and hesitation each taking their hold on me.
“They don’t work,” he said, attempting to pacify my fear. “See,” and he took one out and struck it. I flinched, but nothing happened. “They were out in the rain all night, so they’re ruined.” I very slowly reached out and took them into my own hands, my curiosity mandating my actions. “Try it,” he said. I took out a match and struck it. Nothing. I felt calmer. For some reason, the impotent striking of the match intrigued me.
“Thanks!” I said quickly and got up to walk back in the house. I could hear Brett’s voice in the background, attempting to sway me from leaving, as I stared down at the matches in my hand and felt a tingle of anticipation run through my body.
Later on, in the wake of the chaos that is dinner in a household of 7, I slipped away to the living room and hid around the side of the piano. I slid my fingers into my pocket and pulled out the matches; the water-stained cardboard felt like leather between my fingers as I turned them over repeatedly. I inhaled the wet paper smell for a few seconds before I took out a match and struck it, imagining the flame that would appear if only they weren’t damaged. Each time I struck the match, I pressed it harder and harder, wearing down the match head to nothingness. I thought of all the times adults had told me not to play with matches. But I’d learned what they didn’t know, that they were perfectly safe if wet.
Time slowed down as I pressed hard once again on the striking pad with the match. First there was a miniscule puff of smoke, like that of the caterpillar’s pipe in Alice In Wonderland. It swirled and swayed and took the form of stories untold as it wafted into my nostrils and stung them with the smell of sulfur.
Then, suddenly, everything sped back up. The blue spark, the yellow flame that bit at my fingers, dropping the match onto my Aunt Nancy’s green shag carpeting and the flickering fire that built rapidly at my feet – it all played out like a 45 record on 38-speed.
I stared at it with my wide-open mouth.
In one house-shaking stomp, my Aunt Nancy put out my fire with her foot. I looked up to see her yelling at me, but I was drowning in shock and couldn’t make out her voice coming from above the water’s surface.
She grabbed the matches from my hand and that’s when I came to.
“Where did you get these?” she barked, leaning on me so hard I could actually feel it when I broke.
I sang like a canary. “Brett Palmer did. They’re wet. They don’t work. He showed me.” I was crying so hard I could barely get out full sentences. But that didn’t stop me from squealing like a stuck pig.
“Well obviously they do work. When did he give them to you?” She turned the spotlight on bright. She had me, we both knew it.
“This morning. By the trampoline.” I was desperate. She was holding all the cards. I had nothing. I needed something. I needed at least one card. “I’ll show you where. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll give you whatever you want… just. don’t. tell. my. parents.” Any career I might have had in the mob was over right then and there.
She looked me up and down. “Sure kid. I can do that.”
I went home that night, still a bit shaky, with the biggest secret of my life so far. The excitement kept me up for hours, as I replayed the scene repeatedly in my mind. The strike, the puff, the flame, the drop, the raging fire. Strike, puff, flame, drop, fire. It was exhilarating. I rubbed my fingers together where they had been burnt to prolong their stinging. I sniffed hard, trying to remember the sulfur scent. I fantasized that my fire, instead of being stomped out, engulfed the entire living room of my Aunt’s and Uncle’s home. And I fell asleep to dream the sweet, indulgent dreams of an aspiring firebug.
By the next morning, I’d forgotten it ever happened. That is, until a few months later when the police knocked on my parents’ door.
My mom was working that night, so it was just me and my dad at home. I was on the couch, watching Nova, when they knocked at the door. My dad answered and the unfamiliar voices caught my attention. From my station on the couch, I peered around my father to see two men in blue with badges on our front porch. The whole messy incident flooded my brain and I was instantly convinced the police had learned of what happened in Nancy’s living room and were here to expose me to my parents.
I quietly inched, one butt’s-length at a time, to the end of the couch and stealthily hung off the side, trying to hear what they were saying. But no luck, only bits and pieces. I heard my dad say, “Yes, I have a daughter.” And “No, she wouldn’t do that.” Good old trusting, naïve Dad. God love him.
Then the door shut and I darted back into place and stared at the television. “Who was that?” I asked, hoping to glean some info off him.
“No one. Don’t worry about it.” He stopped and looked at me, pajama-clad and stuffed into the corner of the couch like a rag doll. He seemed to be deciding something when he said, “It’s time for bed.”
Once again, I couldn’t sleep. I threw off the covers and got out of bed. I paced my bedroom floor, one pant-leg stubbornly stuck above my pudgy knee. My stomach ached with guilt, as I imagined how angry my dad would be if he knew that I had not only caught my aunt’s carpet on fire but hid it from him, too. I considered the punishment. Perhaps my bike would be taken away. Maybe I wouldn’t get to play with the neighbor kids after dinner. They might take away television privileges for a month. No TV for a month?!?! Oh man, why couldn’t my mom be home tonight? With her, I’d get out of this with some tears and snot, no problem. But my dad was a tougher nut to crack.
I walked to my parents’ bedroom door, and it creaked as I slowly opened it. He was in bed, but the sound woke him up.
“What do you want, Brandi?” He was expecting something banal, like monsters under the bed or a request for a snack, I knew it. Instead, I crawled onto the bed and let out a barrage of tears and sobs.
“I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” he asked impatiently, prepared for any of the usual five-year-old problems.
My confession spilled out, like toothpaste from a tube. “I got matches from Brett Palmer and lit one and caught Nancy’s carpet on fire!” A jag of boo-hoos and sobs followed in a cacophony of remorse.
“I know,” he said, unaffected by my melodramatics. “She told us the day it happened. When we picked you up. Why are you telling me now?”
“Because the police came and told you about it and I…”
Wait. What?
Nancy told on me? But she said she wouldn’t. She looked me right in the eye and practically promised me she wouldn’t tell my parents. And then she told them mere hours later. It didn’t weigh on her. She didn’t struggle with the decision of who to betray – me or my parents. It was just me. Easy as that.
I climbed down from my parents’ bed with an air of indignation. I adjusted my pant leg, turned on my heel, collected my pride, and walked out the door.
The next morning my mom dropped me off at Nancy’s. I kept my composure throughout breakfast, eating my cereal with the utmost compliance. I waited patiently for Nancy to busy herself with the dishes, then I crept out the back door. I ran the length of the house, hunched over the whole way to avoid being spotted from the kitchen window, and I slipped through the fence into Brett Palmer’s backyard, where I began my search for another pack of matches.
