The Heist

On Wednesday, my spouse, Kati, made Irish soda bread for dinner. While she mixed the dough in the dining room, Dante, our youngest cat, perched on the table to watch. Dante loves food—all food. It doesn’t matter how much we feed him, he always wants more, and he is not adverse to stealing tastes of people food if we are not diligent. On this particular afternoon, while Kati added ingredients to the mixing bowl, Dante did his best to sample the dough. Frustrated at his refusal to sit back and simply watch, Kati banished him to the bedroom so she could finish baking without interference. 

Later that night, Kati put the uneaten bread in a ziplock bag and left it on the counter so that we could eat what was left over the following night. However, on Thursday, as Kati and I were getting dinner ready, I asked her where I could find the bread. She said, “I put it right here,” but when she pointed to the corner of the counter, next to the refrigerator, it wasn’t there. “Are you sure you didn’t put it in the freezer?” She asked, knowing that’s where I kept sourdough bread I use for lunch sandwiches.

“Yes, I’m sure.” But I pulled open the freezer anyway. The bread wasn’t there. The bread didn’t appear to be anywhere. Perplexed, we looked in every possible place either of us could have put it either consciously or absent-mindedly, but we came up empty. 

So, we widened our search, and after a few minutes Kati found it. The soda bread was on the floor, in the far corner of the dining room, a large hole torn into the ziplock bag, and crumbs spilling out of it, covering the hardwood floor. The culprit? Well, we had two suspects: Bean and Dante. While we have three cats, we knew it couldn’t have been Kramer. He’s a gentle fellow who is exceptionally picky when it comes to food. In the year plus we’ve had him, he has never gone after people food. However, Bean and Dante are food fiends. 

A few weeks prior, we came home to find a bag of treats torn open on the kitchen floor. Our suspects then were the same as now. All the cats love the treats, Kramer especially, but even then we were confident he wasn’t guilty. In the kitchen, poised over the food dishes and automatic feeder is a ring camera. It’s there so that we can monitor which cat, or cats, eat the food dispersed throughout the afternoon. On the occasion of the torn treat bag, the cover was over the lens, so we were unable to determine who committed the kitty crime. This time, however, the lens was not obstructed. 

After dinner, Kati set out to uncover the thief. It took her a while to comb through the footage, but she successfully discovered the miscreant. At 7:31 AM, minutes after she left for work that morning, Dante executed the heist. On camera, he can be seen, loaf clutched tightly in his jaw, scurrying away into the dining room. One can tell the loaf is heavy and slipping from his mouth as his short little legs race across the kitchen.  In the background, Bean is watching, incredulous that his brother could be so bold. In the following video, Bean looks like he’s attempting to hide, to keep himself completely removed from the scene, while in the distance you can hear Dante attaching the loaf. 

We’d be angry, if the kitten wasn’t so freaking adorable. It makes us wonder when he started planning the theft. Was it the previous night when Kati locked him in the bedroom? Or was it in the morning when he was bored and curious? And why did he go after the soda bread when he’s never attempted such a stunt with any other type of bread? If only cats could talk, but Bean’s loud meows have yet to divulge any of Dante’s secrets. Conscious of the fact that it doesn’t take much to tempt the little guy, we’ll have to be more careful with food in the future. Though we can’t say for sure, we’re now fairly confident that when it came to the treats, Bean, like Kramer, was innocent.