I begin with a thank you. Thanks to Anita in Palm Desert, Calif., who wrote to say she appreciated my column on the need for more women on corporate boards, but (I'm paraphrasing), gee, can't you give me some ideas on where someone like me can make it known I'm here, able and willing to make a real contribution on a corporate board?

That brings me to Ellen in Wall, N.J., who wrote to offer specific sources for Anita and other women itching to make a difference on a corporate board. So, here's a group that promotes women and might be worth checking out: The Board of Directors Network (board directorsnetwork.org), whose mission is to increase the number of women in executive leadership and on corporate boards.

Another is the Forte Foundation (fortefoundation.org), which, according to its Web site, is a consortium of major corporations and business schools whose mission is to "substantially increase the number of women business leaders."

Thanks also to all of you creative revenge-seekers who wrote in response to my column on the epidemic of food stealing from office refrigerators.

Ideas that may curb thieves include this one from Jim, a teacher in Hawai'i, who "bought some of those peppers that you need gloves to handle," then chopped up and mixed them into his shrimp salad. The day he brought his concoction to work, he says, "It seemed the lunch hour would never come. Would the bandit strike again? Was it a fellow teacher or fearless student? I never found out, but happily my lunch was missing from the refrigerator when I arrived!"

Helen in Ridgeland, Miss., offers this recipe for revenge: "Make something really delish like ham, tuna or egg salad. Add about six tablespoons of extra salt. Place it in a transparent baggie in the fridge. Or add a generous amount of salt or pepper to your beverage. This will not harm anyone, but makes the moocher a bit warier."

Mike in Hawai'i says he stopped the pilfering at an office in a foreign country where he was training military officers. Food theft was so bad, "we rarely were able to eat lunch." He and co-workers placed "a couple of sealed bottles of urine in the fridge labeled with a fictitious name, which caused a terrific uproar" but curtailed the problem.

Thank you to Mike in Cincinnati, who wrote in response to my column in which I advised workers to stop saying, "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up" — as if someday you're going to discover the one thing you're meant to be and live happily ever after — and instead take responsibility to keep learning and develop into who you are continually becoming.

If you need some inspiration, Mike's your guy. He says he quit his corporate job in his mid-20s and that working his way through a transition of going to graduate school and being a bartender "really opened my eyes to the possibilities. Currently, I am a high school teacher, kept my bartender job and recently took up photography.

"As I was learning photography, I took jobs working weddings to learn the art. Last year, I opened my own business that sells photographs to designers and clients. I love all three jobs. Will I have them forever? Probably not. Did I ever guess I would work in any of these fields? Nope. I am thinking about becoming a yoga instructor in the next couple of years, too. We'll see."

Now that's the spirit.

Andrea Kay's e-mail address is andrea@andreakay.com.