The Perfect Crime (Almost)
There are times in life when you want, no you need to give in to your desires.
Coming home at the end of the day and taking off your bra.
When the alarm goes off in the morning and you press snooze one more time.
Smacking a bag of rice.
When someone asks if you want another Ferrero Rocher.
When someone suggests you watch a TV show because Tom Hardy is in it…
When you want a ring doughnut and you’re at work.
Which leads to the problem: do you have enough doughnuts to share with the entire office? Yes? No problem. Give in to your desires.
No? Well, then you’re going to have to eat it without anybody else noticing that you’re eating a ring doughnut, aren’t you?
There are rules when you’re trying to eat something in the office without alerting the others.
- It can’t be something that is noisy.
- It can’t be something that has a strong scent.
- It can’t be something that leaves evidence.
Who made these rules? I have no idea, but we all know them, don’t we?
My office, like most these days, is open plan.
There is nowhere to hide what you’re eating.
Unless…
Unless you happen to have two absolutely enormous monitors on your desk.
Which I do.
They’re so big that if I want to have a conversation with the person sitting next to me, I have to scoot my chair to the far side of the desk so they can actually hear me.
But on this occasion, I wasn’t interested in conversation.
I was interested in concealment.
I ate the doughnut and it was magnificent. I have honestly never had a doughnut that tasted that good.
The illicit nature is what made it so good.
And better still?
I’d got away with it. I’d eaten the doughnut and nobody was any the wiser. I could even have a second doughnut later in the day. People could SEE me eating that doughnut, and nobody, absolutely nobody, would know that I’d had TWO doughnuts.
I was so sneaky.
I was the sneakiest of sneaky people.
In the history of sneaky people, I was probably going to be the one appointed to be the professor of sneaky studies at Oxford University.
Smug mode engaged.
About twenty minutes later, I needed to go to the bathroom. Normal behaviour. But it was as I stood up that I realised that maybe I hadn’t been the sneakiest of sneaky people.
Sugar poured down my legs, having been caught in my top and the folds of my trousers. As it cascaded to the floor, I looked down to see that I was still covered in the sugar.
Did I risk brushing it from my trousers?
Did I wait to go to the bathroom and then brush it from my trousers?
Was anyone going to notice that there was a large scattering of sugar around my desk and chair?
Had anyone noticed?
No.
So quickly I made my Great Escape to the bathroom, shaking my legs to dislodge the sugar. Kicking it into the carpet. I felt like Steve McQueen.
So came to an end my brief career as a sneaky professor. My smug mode was well and truly disengaged and I’m pretty sure the cleaner, when vacuuming around my desk that evening, must have wondered what on earth had been going on.
Apparently, I’d forgotten Rule Number Three. Never leave evidence.
I really should have paid more attention in my own lectures.
Maybe next time I’ll try to sneakily eat something that leaves less evidence.
