Greater Good

Ever since I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I'll go through phases where I'm hungry all the time. Today was one of those weird days.  My packed lunch didn't make it past one o'clock. So I had to dig into my stash - a drawer of gluten free goodies that I take from whenever someone brings in donuts, cake or cookies - basically every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I pulled out a container of Trader Joe's mini-peanut butter cups, opened it and remembered that I had just been in the copy room using the germ-filled machine along with a dozen other people - two getting over bronchitis, the rest with nasty colds. So I left the bag on MY desk and went to wash my hands.
On the way back I briefly noticed my co-worker, I'll call him Bob, had a half-eaten sandwich on his desk along with an open bag of pretzels. I didn't really care about this fact until I went to my desk and saw Bob with his hand in my container of candy.
Now I should mention that whenever I go into Bob's office he always offers me what he's eating. Normally, he pulls his hand out of the bag, licks his fingers, and asks if I want one. I always say no. He then follows up with what seems to be his favorite question "Can you eat this?"  I used to answer honestly, but since he asks it about the same food over and over, I just tell him I don't know and continue on with the reason I went into his office in the first place. I should also mention that people at my workplace tend to go trick or treating in the middle of the day. They go from desk to desk looking for whatever they are craving. Sue has chocolate, Kate has cookies gets whispered down the lane. So the fact that Bob was digging through my candy, while gross and rude, was not entirely unexpected.
"I just needed something sweet." He explained, as if that was reason enough for the smear of chocolate on the letter A of my keyboard.
"Well, you can have the whole thing now." I told him.
"Why?"
And that's where I was stuck. I've tried many times to explain to Bob why I can't take from the dip bowl after he's scooped out some with his bread stick, why I can't use the office toaster and why I clean out the office microwave before putting my food in. But he never gets it. Contamination is a word he can't understand having to do with food.
So, in what I thought was a moment of genius, I tried another way. "Bob, if I just touched rat poison and then put my hand in that candy, without washing my hands first, would you want to eat the candy?" What felt like five minutes later, he responded. "No?"
"No." I affirmed. "And gluten, which is in the bread of the sandwich you were just holding, will do the same thing to my stomach as rat poison would do to yours."
"Right. So you can't eat this now?"
"Nope."
Bob started to walk away and I handed him the candy.  He looked at it dubiously, but took it.
I should have been annoyed, and bummed, that I didn't have my candy.   But I didn't.   Instead, I felt victorious, having finally gotten through to Bob!  I was still hungry but I didn't mind. If it meant I would never have to explain to Bob again why one little pretzel stick could, in fact, hurt me I was okay with it.  It was all for the greater good.
I was still on my aren't-I- so-clever high when an hour later I went into Bob's office to drop some paperwork off. That's when I noticed the nearly full container of candy in his trash can. I asked Bob, somewhat bitterly, if he didn't like the candy.
He responded, "I'm not going to eat it if it's covered in poison!"
I know I shouldn't have given up, I should have tried again to get him to understand. But I didn't.  Instead all I said was, "Good call."
In truth, I was most likely helping him out. If I did tell him the candy wasn't covered in poison, I'm willing to bet he would have eaten it straight out of the trash.  Giving up this time, was for the greater good.