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Legend: A woman just returned from maternity leave circulates a chiding memo after someone helps himself to the "special" milk she's left in the office refrigerator.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1997]
Origins: This memo was in circulation at least as far back as October 1996. It has since been passed around in 
cyberspace both in Its appeal is easy to understand — there is something inexplicably icky about one The memo is often described as having come from "a woman at our interactive advertising agency recently returned from maternity leave." Neither the name of the agency nor the woman's is given, rendering impossible the pinning down of the story's veracity. Though most appearances of the memo quote the woman as saying "whilst having a discussion about Java applets or brand identity," at least a few have her mentioning "a discussion about the last monthly trends or perceptual study." This item of faxlore has
The office refrigerator is the scene of many unthinking (and occasionally premeditated) transgressions. Milk you thought would be there for your late morning coffee disappears from the container, and indeed some days your lunch seems to swallow itself — it's certainly not there when you go looking for it. Picturing a refrigerator raider getting his comeuppance in this fashion is deeply satisfying: What could be more socially awkward than having to face, day after day, the woman whose breast milk you pilfered? A Reader's Digest "Campus Comedy" entry from the early 1970s gives a gentler, yet recognizable, version of the legend. It tells of a note left on the dorm fridge that announced: "Whoever ate the contents of a container marked 'Stanley,' beware. It was my biology experiment." This theme of the office pilferer drinking the wrong thing swiped from the refrigerator isn't uncommon, but usually the bodily fluid in question is urine, not milk. (A well-remembered scene in the TV show Hill Street Blues has A related legend Brunvand calls "The Stolen Specimen" takes place outside of the office. A urine sample to be transported to a lab is stored in a liquor bottle, and the bearer is relieved of it by a thief. Again, the enjoyment of the legend comes from being able to picture the wrongdoer getting a mouthful he'd much rather not have. Barbara "milk of human kineness" Mikkelson Last updated: 22 July 2007 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2010 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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