▸ Column · Modern gothic-noir Gotham — a corporate break room in the Wayne Enterprises annex
BATMAN replies.
The letter
Three times this month, someone has lifted my labeled Thai basil chicken from the shared fridge on the forty-first floor of the Wayne Enterprises annex. I'm certain it's Gerald in Accounts Payable — he turned up to the 2 p.m. stand-up reeking of lemongrass on each occasion. I've escalated through the full diplomatic ladder: a stern sticky note ("THIS IS KAREN'S LUNCH AND I WILL FIND OUT"), a wounded little sad-face version, and finally a laminated card bearing a photo of my own disappointed face, which he strolled past without slowing down. My husband says drop it. But this is a fourteen-dollar meal-prep on a Wednesday, and "dropping it" isn't in me. Is it crossing a line to plant a decoy container of "leftover pasta" that's actually loaded with a ferocious dose of ghost pepper oil — or do I take the high road and CC his manager on a formal Stolen Lunch Incident Report?
Batman replies
Lemongrass breath is not evidence. It is a hunch. Hunches get the wrong man indicted and the right one comfortable. You have shown your hand three times — a note, an emoji, a laminated photograph. You taught him you are loud and harmless. A predator learns that fast.
No ghost pepper oil. I have seen what people justify when they decide one small cruelty is owed them. It never stays small, and it never stays the target you aimed it at. You poison a container, the wrong stomach finds it. Then you are the one with a report filed against you. Cross that line and the petty thief becomes the victim. Do not hand him that.
Forget the manager. Filing on faith is the same mistake — you are trusting a system that has done nothing yet.
Build the case. A second container. A reason for him to open the fridge on camera. Timestamped, irrefutable, his hand in the frame. Then you do not threaten. You simply let him know it exists. Guilty men supply their own fear.
Gerald is a coward. Cowards stop the moment the dark stops being safe. Make the fridge dark.
— Batman
Catwoman weighs in
Forty-one floors and he's running a stakeout over chicken. Sugar, that's so you.
Here's the thing the Bat won't say because he can't help loving a long game: Gerald isn't a case. He's a sad man with lemongrass breath stealing from the one person in the building who'll actually miss the fourteen dollars. That's the only crime here — he picked someone who counts it.
So don't build a dossier and don't beg his manager for permission, because that report puts your name on paperwork over leftovers. Just stop leaving the take where he can reach it. Eat at your desk. Keep your lunch like I keep everything worth keeping — close, and mine. Let Gerald open an empty fridge and feel it.
— Catwoman
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