Just eat it, you little piggy.

Among all the weird office behaviors I've never understood, this is one of the more incomprehendable. You know the box of assorted donuts that shows up from time to time? First of all, why do they insist on putting that one in with white frosting and coconut shavings? No one wants that one. Ever. If the donuts come in at 9am, the sad coconut one is still sitting there at 4:30. Note to bakers: just stop making the coconut one. It's wasteful.

But what I'm trying to talk about here are the "I'll just have half" goblin, the one that swoops in when no one's looking and breaks a donut in two, leaving the other half to waste away uneaten, his only friend the abandoned coconut donut.

I understand the concept here -- you want only half a donut. You think that maybe by breaking the donut in half, you are leaving the other half there for someone else who also decides they want only half a donut. However, you fail to account that you are living in germophobe America, where everything from dishwashing soap to Chee-tos is sold in antibacterial form. Sure, anyone who comes along and sees your half donut will probably assume that you didn't just hungrily gnaw off the side you wanted, but they'll still know that you picked up the entire donut with your grimy paws and tore it in half. No one wants that other half now. It's a pariah donut.

Maybe MAYBE if you used a knife to make a clean cut, the resulting half donut might not be rejected by your office mates, but here's a better suggestion:

TAKE THE WHOLE DONUT. Just take it. It wasn't on your dime anyway. Find someone to split it with you, or simply eat half and throw the other half away. If you are unwilling or unable to throw away half a donut because of the waste factor, please re-read the third paragraph wherein I point out that you live in America and accept that this kind of behavior is expected. If you're afraid that you'll eat the whole donut because you don't have the willpower to throw away half the donut, then allow me to point out that you've already lost the willpower battle because you're eating donuts in the first place. Today is not your day to make good food choices, so enjoy the whole donut.

I bring this up because the "I'll just have half" goblins are getting more ridiculous. I approached the donut box a few days ago to find, next to the coconut donut, three-quarters of a donut. Three quarters, people. Someone actually managed to extract one-quarter of a donut for their reduced guilt pleasure, ruining the rest of it for someone else. Judging by the fatties in my office, I don't think eating the rest of the donut would have made much difference.