We've all had this one. You bring in lunch or a soda, and when chow time comes, it's not there.

I tried everything.

I spray painted the cans safety yellow, so nobody would know what was in there.

I took a 12-pack out to the bench grinder and used the wire wheel to take the paint off of the cans.

I bought a lockbox, just to put a soda in it, and left it in the fridge. I found it open with a note that said, "Nice try."

Then, I decided to take extreme measures. Let's just say that the Warrant Officer who ran this department was a little man who liked big flavor. He grew these tiny little peppers in a window box outside his office, and they smelled hot from 10 feet away. I stole 2.

I spun them up in the blender with some water and sprayed the resulting slurry all over the tops of the cans, let them dry, and took them to work. I put some plastic cups in my locker to actually drink the soda from because being in the room with the peppers nearly killed me, and I absolutely LOVE heat.

Sure enough, about 10 am the next morning, Sgt QA comes stumbling from the office, eyes bugging out out of his head and vomiting from one of the gunner's tiny doom peppers.

I walked up to him and asked him what had happened. He said someone had tried to poison him, and he was going to call NIS. I asked him how he was going to explain that it happened because he had been drinking from cans that were inside a locked box in the refrigerator in someone else's office that had been ground down and had someone else's name on them.

My sodas never disappeared again.