By Comedic Storyteller Onicia Muller
Granola and yoghurt is the breakfast of heart-healthy introverts. I needed my roommate to stop guzzling mine. Choops! Give a bum one yoghurt and they suddenly think you’re their daily dairy plug.
When I confronted her, she gave me a look that said she was holding back a wave of choice words. Being assertive is overrated: I accused the wrong person, and now I had to sleep with one eye open.
The hostel owner’s response to our complaint was a joke. Printing “No molestes el yogur de las niñas” and pinning it with alphabet letter magnets to the fridge was not going to deter a hardened calcium criminal.
Second of all, who he calling niñas? The construction workers clearly identified us as “mujeres [kissing sound effects]!”
The breakfast burglar struck again! I was enraged imagining them stumbling into the hostel after a night of misdeeds and slinked into the kitchen where they laughed at my sign while eating my yoghurt.
They probably also snapped a few selfies for the gram with our warning sign in the background. #Yum #TheftMakesEverythingTasteBetter #CopperCantCatchMe
Since my roommate wasn’t guilty and our landlord was useless, we joined forces to solve the case of the Mexican Yoghurt Thief.
One day, someone is cooking a meal using all the stove burners. We decided to put our ground beef to thaw while we waited for the kitchen to free up. Gasp! The mystery person is using Our. Ground. Beef. This must be the yoghurt thief!
We had to stop the mealtime monster before they expanded their criminal enterprise beyond dairy and meat products.
We snapped and risked it all. We sprinkled a salt, hot sauce, a random assortment of spices, condiments, and other edible and inedible items into the pot.
Did we spit in that food? Friends, some details are for your deathbed. I will say it’s incredible how much stuff you can conceal in a pot of ground beef. Makes you wonder how easy it is for a pissed-off waiter to mess with your food.
We went to our room and started vlogging our revenge. (So much for vowing to take things to our graves.)
Coughing. Choking sounds. Oh no. Silence and wide-eyed stares replaced our maniacal laughter. Did we unintentionally cross the line between a harmless prank and criminal offence? I could barely survive detention; I was certainly not built for prison.
Serving a 10-year prison sentence in Mexico was not the way I envisioned celebrating my 23rd birthday.
Woosh, the yoghurt thief survived, and we never again had to worry about stolen food. Most importantly, I never saw the inside of a Mexican prison.
Shout out to salt and hot sauce, the best ingredients for food sabotage!
Award-winning Caribbean comedian Onicia Muller regrets leaving St. Maarten for windy Chicago. Her weekly humour column, Just Being Funny, is chicken soup for the naive sceptic’s soul. Join her newsletter for funny stories and stand-up comedy: OniciaMuller.com/JBF
