The Great Chocolate Heist

Mindy thought she was being nice and thoughtful by picking up a small bag of chocolate covered peanut butter bars for the office. The tiny bag contained eight pieces of delectable sweets, and Jenny was delighted. Mindy and Jenny each tried one, and they were quite tasty. That afternoon, Jenny brought up a piece each for herself and Brett. She loved them. Brett didn’t, but hey, more for Jenny, right?

Apparently not.

The last four pieces disappeared.

After lunch the next day, Jenny went to the cupboard to grab a chocolate for dessert, but the bag was missing. A quick search revealed it had been thrown away, empty. She had just checked a couple hours before, and there had been four pieces left. So within the span of an hour and a half, someone had taken the last of the chocolate! Jenny was understandably heartbroken, but she was determined to find out who had done such a thing.

For the next couple hours, nobody was safe from Jenny’s pointed questions and accusing glances. She was like a shark with the scent of chocolate in her nostrils! Brett was under suspicion because of his past record of pranking everyone, and also because he didn’t like the chocolate. Mike looked guilty because he just laughs at everything. Or it could have been Anne, because she’s the most devious in the elf game. Or Jeff, because it’s JEFF. Or Maria, who sneaks chocolate even after she tells us not to let her. It could have been anyone!

Pat saw our tweet and immediately called Amanda, wracked with guilt and horrified he was at fault. He had been in the office and eaten a piece of chocolate that Rachel had by her desk, and he thought it was his fault chaos had broken loose. Amanda explained the whole thing to him and told him he was off the hook. Office policy states that if there’s candy left out, it’s for everyone. If you have your own private stash of candy, you must keep it in a drawer. So Rachel’s chocolate was fair game, but we still had no clue who had taken Jenny’s chocolate (which, technically speaking, was also available for everyone, but the sticking point was that nobody came forward to say they had eaten it. It’s the principle of the thing).

The next day at lunch, Jeff had an idea. He tore a sheet of paper into pieces and put them next to a mason jar in the far corner of our horribly echoey break room. We all had to write simply “Yes” or “No” on a piece and put it in the jar. The idea was to find out if one of us had done it without having to assign blame. At that point, we all just wanted to know who did it.

When Amanda tallied up the papers, they all said “No.” She couldn’t even.

That was our first indication that we could be dealing with an outside actor. The next day after lunch, a white package appeared on Jenny’s desk stool…

It was like rubbing salted caramel on a wound…

This touched off a new round of finger pointing, accusations, and hullabaloo. Jenny was heartbroken that one of her co-workers was lying–usually if there’s a prank, someone owns up to it immediately, or at least within an hour or two. So the candy thief was playing dirty pool. Anne saw her distress and admitted to buying a new package of chocolates just so Jenny could have some peace of mind. But the question of the original chocolates remained, heavy in the air between us.

At this point, nobody has come forward, even though we can all see how stressed Jenny is over the massive chocolate coverup. So we think it’s safe to assume there was an outside force at work, or maybe it was just Jeff eating the chocolate without realizing he was doing it (he admitted he sometimes has a snack and forgets about it). As much as we’d like to blame Jeff, he’s a bad liar, so we’re pretty sure he didn’t do it. We can’t blame each other forever, and chocolate is easy to come by. While the mystery persists, we kinda like each other, so it’s hard to stay suspicious. Though Mindy vowed never to buy chocolates for us again.

Officially: Case closed.

Square Bowl IV: Chrono Cross

Just a friendly reminder, Square Bowl IV will kick off tomorrow at 5pm PST and run for 48 hours straight! Adriel Wallick and Teddy Dief will play Square’s 1999 Playstation classic Chrono Cross, commenting on it from their new perspective as professional  game designers, almost ten years after the game’s debut. They’re playing to raise money for Worldbuilders, so please check out their page to see what sorts of goodies they’re giving away during the stream.

Square Bowl IV will be held on their Twitch channel, and they have a series of guest hosts from all over the video game industry who will stop in from time to time to give their own opinions and commentary on the game. It’s going to be super fun!

«
»