So I arrived at work and set about making my morning coffee at the aptly named “tea station” on my floor. The tea station is a kind of small refreshment room or “liquid and solids sustenance zone” if you work in one of those fancy open plan offices; it’s kitted out with hot water, a microwave, a fridge. Everything you need to make a hot drink, which is pretty bloody amazing if you don’t think about it. No, don’t think about it.

When I opened the fridge, I was greeted by a crudely fashioned, printed out sign on A4 paper, with the words “Thieving twat’s operate in this area! You’re stuff is not safe here!!” Terrifying stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Luckily, my milk was left intact and the mysterious thieving twat had made good with somebody else’s. So I didn’t give too much of a shit, really. Well, none at all, actually. But we are living in challenging times. When terrorists aren’t blowing stuff up with Fairy Liquid bottle bombs, there are ‘Hoodies’ lurking round the corner, ready to pounce on you and jump on your toe whilst a repugnant, weasel-faced cohort captures the whole, frightening reality of the incident on his mobile phone and posts it on YouTube. In .avi format no less.

So What Can I Do?

One way to stop people stealing things is to make them not want that thing in the first place. You need to render the potential stolen goods undesirable using whatever means you have. And as every office worker will tell you, the most powerful means of getting any message across is by leaving messages on stuff with sticky labels. The Post-It is mightier than a slightly stern email sent around the department.

I will now demonstrate how to not get your stuff stolen from the tea station, but first, note how I have NOT used sticky labels. That’s because a would-be thieving twat can easily remove sticky labels. You have now learned Rule 1: ALWAYS BE ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE GAME.

Andy’s milk

Wrong, wrong, WRONG, wrong, WRONG! There’s nothing a thief will prey on more than heart-on-the-sleeve honesty. It’s milk suicide and you may as well invite the thief over to your house, cook him a nice meal and then let him drink your milk straight out of the bottle - without shaking it so he gets all the cream.





do not drink please

You may be feeling all smart with yourself because you’re thinking, “Yep. That’s more like it. They’re certainly going to think twice now. Perhaps more. Well you couldn’t be more wrong.
Rule 2: YOUR MILK IS NEVER SAFE BECAUSE THEY WANT YOUR MILK
Which is self-explanatory and leads us nicely on to our next case study.




dog’s milk

Now you’ve upped the ante a bit and at this point, your assailant will be scratching his head and wondering whether he wants to actually pour some of this in his tea. These questions will be racing through his mind:

• I like milk, but do I like dog's milk?
• Does it taste like normal milk or does it taste like dogs?
• What do dogs taste like, anyway?
• Where does dog milk come from, their cocks? I’ve never seen a dog's tits, perhaps it comes out of their cocks when they piddle, with hairs in it.

Depending on the effectiveness of this on the individual robber, they could well be panicking by now. This has bought you valuable time and if you are successful, the thief will drop their tea on the floor and make a hasty exit from the tea station before they are caught.

rare dolphin sperm sample

If the dog method doesn't work, you'll need to try and distract the thief with decoy tactics. One way is to remove all association of milk from the bottle of milk, thus fooling the attacker. In this case, we see a nice little twist, which was used by the SAS during the Iranian Embassy siege – Not only is the bottle labelled as dolphin spunk, it is rare dolphin spunk, which is illegal to drink. And nobody wants to drink dolphin spunk anyway. Except for perhaps Sting, who would probably gargle with it before having a tantric wank. Facing Gaia.

Ronson’s Bum Piss

Now you’re talking. Everyone knows that this stuff does exactly what it says on the tin and the tin says BUM PISS. Why not put actual bum piss in it and make the milk turn chocolatey, for real.

So happy tea drinking and let’s be careful out there. Brew smart, think smart, think milk.