As long as it's edible...

On any given day in my office, there are two or three (and often more during the Holidays) piles/stacks/bowls of free food sitting out for common consumption. If you can eat it, someone has brought it: cookies, mixed nuts, donuts, cakes, popcorn, summer sausage, deer sausage, fruit and dip, cheese squares, jerky, chips and salsa, chips and queso, chips and more chips, trail mix, jalapeno jelly, and the list goes on. One can almost survive - albeit not healthfully - on a diet of office samples alone. The general premise is a good one: people have something that they like, and they share it with others.

Today I walked by the coffee bar and saw that someone had set out two bags of assorted cookies and a tin of caramel corn. I stopped, and without thinking, removed one from the bag and found it a home between my teeth. A co-worker walked by, saw the cookies and quickly made way to the bag. "Where did these come from?" he asked, popping a chocolate elephant into his mouth. "I have no idea," was my reply through a mouth full of crumbs. We paused to look at each other and realized that although it was unlikely, these cookies may have been licked, dropped on the floor, spat upon, or laced with cyanide and we wouldn't have noticed or cared. They were cookies, and they were free.

This is in sharp contrast with my usual policy for full disclosure with my food. I am creeped out by the thought of a hair in my penne pasta or the horrid mental picture of a chef dropping a spoon and returning it back to my simmering pot of chicken noodle soup. Then why do I so quickly jump on the free food bandwagon when I spy a snack that has probably been sitting for half a day in a public area? This is epecially creepy when thinking about people who don't wash their hands having dug into the same bag of cookies. I am pretty schkeeved out by thinking about what I've unwittingly ingested over the years of working in a food-filled office. I'm sure I'll remember this right up until the next batch of caramel covered peanuts catches my eye, at which point, it's all fair game in work and food.