If you are like me, your productivity and creative drive are probably fueled by snacks. Have you noticed that your snacks seem to disappear faster than expected? If you’re experiencing that problem, you may be suffering the depredations of vile snack pirates.

Security experts have identified four major types of snack pirates. Let me describe them and offer ideas about how to cope with their insidious ravages of your snack inventory.

1. Family

Your loving family may also be pirates. Undoubtedly, at times, you have caught a spouse, child, or parent making off with your treasures.

There are two approaches that might help.

Divide and conquer. Leave the treats you can spare in a place that is easy to find and conceal the good snacks in a secret hidden place where no one will look. For example, graham crackers in the cookie jar and chocolate-covered graham crackers in your tool box at the back of the garage under the camping gear. Get it?

Get out. The other approach that helps when you’re surrounded by a family of pirates is to live alone. Just move out. And remember there’s no law that says you have to tell them where you’re going. Take your treats with you. 

2. Co-workers.

Pirates at work. Coping with stress of the modern workplace, ethically challenged co-workers will sometimes help themselves to your snacks when you aren’t around. 

Vile bait. Here’s a strategy that works against hungry co-workers. Snack pirates at work almost always stop looking when they find edibles, so put some out-of-date snack where it will be easily discovered and conceal your valuable snacks in a place no one will look. For example, keep 5-year-old fig newtons in your top drawer and hide your favorite peanut-butter-filled pretzels behind the HR manual on your shelf. 

3. Animals

4. Phantoms. 

Mystery. Not every facet of reality is understood yet by science. Pockets of mystery remain. Don’t overlook the possibility that your snacks are being spirited away by trolls, unicorns, aliens, or visitors from another dimension. Who knows what motivates beings from another galaxy or time travelers? They probably get hungry too, right?

Share the goodies. Phantoms are the hardest snack pirates to defend against because they may be invisible or exist in a different time/space matrix. So, if this is the kind of problem you face, the best strategy is to buy extra snacks so you have treats to spare.

A solution?

If you have had success with other defensive strategies, please share them with a hungry world by writing a comment below.

Don—Pittsburgh, October 10, 2019