There are some things that just cry out for legislation. Take
leftovers, for example. If you’re like most people, at one time or
another you’ve brought home a Styrofoam container of leftover.
There are some things that just cry out for legislation. Take leftovers, for example. If you’re like most people, at one time or another you’ve brought home a Styrofoam container of leftover
I’m telling you, there ought to be a Leftover Law. Wait – perhaps you think there’s no need for this law. You think that leftover ownership is implied and private, and therefore, ungovernable. You have a valid point. After all, there are different types of leftovers.
Leftovers that are family leftovers, like Thanksgiving leftovers, clearly belong to everyone who ate the meal. You cannot legislate family leftovers – how do you determine how much turkey each member gets to eat for lunch the next day? Clearly, laws that legislate family leftovers are unenforceable. But there’s another type of leftover and it’s the leftover that most people have problems with – the Personal Leftover, which is stored in the Personal Leftover Styrofoam Container, or PLSC.
This leftover is, without doubt, the property of the original eater and not a family leftover. Let me give you an example. Let’s say it’s a Friday night and you go to Gilroy Bowl to eat prime rib. It’s a known, documented fact that you cannot go to Gilroy Bowl and eat the entire prime rib dinner in one sitting. I know this. I’ve tried.
When you’re totally stuffed and there’s still a big slab of meat on your plate, you bring home the leftovers, right? And, since your fork was the last fork to touch the food, these are your leftovers. Well, I ask you – what is to stop the other members of your family from eating those leftovers for breakfast the next morning? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The next morning, you can wake up all eager to eat your leftovers for bres. And you’ve probably put it in the fridge for the next day’s lunch, only to open your refrigerator, reach in and discover to your horror that your leftovers are GONE.
Now, maybe you’ve been truly unfortunate. Maybe you’ve had this happen to you not once, not twice, but many times. Don’t you think that somebody should be legislating that?
You get up to have prime rib for breakfast and it won’t be there. And there is nothing you can do about it because there are no laws governing leftovers.
And, to add insult to injury, nine times out of 10, the leftover thief has only eaten the good parts of the PLSC.
That’s right. When you were at the Gilroy Bowl, loading your PLSC with all that prime rib goodness, a few pieces of broccoli snuck in. I call these accidental leftovers.
They hang out with the real leftovers, taking up space in the Styrofoam. And the leftover thief will invariably leave those darned pieces in the PLSC, which the thief will put back in the fridge.
That’s just wrong. I mean, not only are you disappointed when you open the container and your beef is missing, but there are some pieces of veggie in its place.
It’s like a slap in the face. The thief didn’t even have the decency to toss the container in the trash after eating your food. That’s just mean. Not only have they eaten your personal leftover, but they compound the evilness by making you clean up after them. What kinds of people do that?
Oh sure, there are some leftover thieves – and you know who you are, Harry and Junior – who will say that they didn’t know that the broccoli was just an accidental leftover.
In fact, some may even have the audacity to claim that they believed you were saving the broccoli and that the prime rib was the accidental leftover.
And yes, Harry, I am talking to you. Please. What am I – or you – going to do with one little forlorn piece of broccoli? Even the most ardent veggie lover won’t save one piece of broccoli. It’s a waste of PLSC.
And that is why there ought to be a law. So that people everywhere who live in a free society can be saved from the evils of leftover poaching.
And with those laws firmly in place, one day, all of us will be able to open our refrigerators, look at our PLSC’s without fear or trepidation, and be safe in the knowledge that our prime rib is there, waiting for us to eat it for breakfast.
You know, maybe I’ll give Sally Lieber a call. She might be just the legislator we need to make this law happen. In the meantime, Bon Appetit!
