-Stealing office supplies to build a better life-

It began with salad dressing. So much salad dressing was wasted anyway, donated by schools and offices all the time, but especially in the spring when the fraternities at the nearest college needed to make their service quota.

So it was quite natural for the sorting staff to dip into the food bank's cardboard boxes at the end of each week, and to distribute odd bottles of the last and unfilled case to the volunteers and hires alike. Full cases of salad dressing were taking over the shelves anyway, and the removal of the final case, (more air than oil!) didn't warrant a tacit or written reprimand on the subject.

The next item intended for the needy and commandeered by the helpers wasn't food. Every week someone donates a tacky lamp, usually with the bulb included. This is quickly unscrewed from the lamp no one wanted or will want and secreted in purses and book bags.

Toliet paper and paper towels are monitored closely, but that's a simple matter of dropping them and declaring the item "damaged."

They fell fast, and far. They began taking the foodstuffs the poor most desperately required.

Canned soup. Loaves of bread. Salad mix. Milk.

Meat.

Small items here and there, purloined casually and casually justified. Unaware that each of their fellows also lifted staple groceries in trace amounts.

The bookkeeper knows. She watches the ledgers with concern. She spies on the others to keep their thievery within reasonable limits. She does not confront the problem directly, because she too, is a food bank burgler. She does not feel remorse, only the responsibility to account for discrepancies in the stock. Her bosses will spot great irregularities, so she must see to it that all irregularities are small and easily explained.

She declares whole crates "damaged." Some bosses truly listen to their employees.