"Woman's weapon," my ass.

[amanuensis1]

I read an interesting fic this morning, and it made me think: if you're going to serve someone poisoned food--the kind that needs cooking and assembling--how can you tell if the food's cooked to palatability before you serve it? You can't very well taste it and see. So you'd have to put the poison in at the end. But then you'd have this pot sitting on the stove and what if someone came in and said, "Oh, stew!" and sampled some? So it'd be safer to put it in the individual bowl it was going to be served in. But then you'd have to mix it around in the bowl to mix in the poison. And be careful not to lick the spoon after. And what if it got sloshed around the edges of the bowl and didn't look pristine for serving; then you'd have to put it in another bowl. And wash the first one real quick, before you took the poisoned one out for serving. And what gets out poison residue from dishware? Do you just use regular liquid detergent? Maybe you should throw away the bowl. But what if someone finds it in the garbage; then that's evidence. And what if it's the kind of poison that needs to be cooked into the food a little so the victim doesn't taste it? Then we're back to the pot on the stove. Damn, this is tricky.

Yes, I think about this kind of stuff.

Comments

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Pffe... Just make a salad and make sure you put only domesticated white buttons in yours and Amanita bisporigera in theirs. Use different colored bowls if it will help you keep track of whose is whose. Or give them pokeweed in their salad, but make sure yours is boiled properly and theirs isn't.

Or you could do the neat trick of feeding the victim doses of powdered arsenic over a period of time so that it builds up in their tissues and then *stop* feeding them the arsenic. Their body would dump the build-up and poison them that way. You could do it by giving them 'powdered' donuts.

Or inject thallium into their diet sodas. Those things taste funny anyway, and since you only drink regular soda that explains why you didn't get sick AND why you tossed the diet soda after they died.

Thanks to Sisters in Crime, I could probably come up with a good dozen ways to poison someone.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Another good salad veg is diffenbachia -- also called dumbcane. It makes the mouth and throat tissues swell closed if a person eats enough of it. And it's apparently no more bitter than raddiccio, really. Best part? Sold at any wal-mart or florist, and completely legal.

Or, better yet, nicotine poisoning -- the patch, a bit of gum, and a regular smoking habit, and a nasty problem's gone for good.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear about people getting diffenbachia plants when they have cats. Not a good thing, I'm guessing.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh! I knew nothing about the arsenic-dump after you stop administering it! Is that so?

And the diet soda idea amuses me mightily, particularly the logic about why you tossed it out after they died. ^_^

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Ooh-- I hadn't thought of it, but salad is such a good method, if it's one of those meals with placecards and a bowl of salad at every place-- you could do whatever prep you want.