Not Your Usual Cat Burglar The following is a true story. Really. By John Gonzalez
I HAVE A CAT NAMED RANNIE. SHE STEALS THINGS.
Don’t worry about the origin of the name; that’s another story for another time. For now, all you need to know is that she’s of above-average intelligence. That and, like I said, she’s a klepto. Not jewelry or cash money, though that would be cool. No, she steals food. Worse still, she steals my food.
And she’s gotten really good at it.
First, a little background. She’s a fat, oblong sphere of a feline -- think a large eggplant or a medium-size melon but with fur and paws. I rescued her from an animal shelter about five years ago. She wasn’t fat then. That changed under my care. She progressed (or regressed, come to think of it) from having a normal appetite to being hungry all the time. All. The. Time. At first, she would just sit and cry outside the closet where I keep her food. When she realized that wouldn’t get her fed, she turned to a life of crime. If I was making dinner and turned my back, she’d leap onto the counter and abscond with pieces of cheese or morsels of meat. She’s also a fan of ranch dressing, lapping it up like water.
But that was small-time stuff. And she knew it.
At some point, she decided to step up her efforts -- sort of like graduating from street stickups to armored-car heists. One day, I went to get my coat out of the closet -- the same closet where I keep her food. I grabbed my jacket, closed the door, and went out for a few hours. When I came back, I heard a muffled noise coming from said closet. It sounded garbled and tortured. I thought it might be an injured mouse. When I opened the door, there was the cat, her head buried in what was left of her food bag. She was moaning terribly and trying in vain to eat her way to the bottom. She must have spied a good hiding place when I grabbed my coat, and she went for it. At first, I was angered by her boldness. Then I was sort of amazed. How long had she been hatching that plan, I wondered? And was she working alone, or had she made accomplices out of Dog and Penguin (her two favorite stuffed animals)?
Her big score, though, came not long thereafter. What I’m about to tell you is a true story, however unbelievable it may sound. One night, after losing a protracted battle with a bottle of scotch (which isn’t the unbelievable part), I woke up to a rustling noise coming from the kitchen. I thought it was a burglar -- a hungry one. I went to see what was happening, and as I turned the corner, I saw my cat lying on the floor struggling to breathe, her belly pooched out, bathed in the faint glow of the refrigerator’s light. She had eaten the chicken I had grilled and saved for the week. All three large breasts. More impressive, though, was the fact that the chicken was encased in plastic wrap. She somehow managed to locate the chicken (her favorite), pull it out of the fridge, unwrap it from the plastic, and then gorge herself. She did this three times.
It looked like she was in a chicken coma.
For a while, I thought it was my fault, that I had been inebriated and had left the fridge door open. I mean, who hasn’t been there? But then a few weeks later, it happened again. Then a month later, again. Don’t get me wrong; I like a few adult beverages now and then, but not even Boris Yeltsin gets that banged up. Something else had to be going on. And it was.
A friend visiting from out of town crashed on my couch one night. In the morning, he confirmed my worst fears. “Oy,” he said (he’s British; that’s how he talks), “I caught your cat opening the fridge last night.”
Read it again. Let it marinate.
Despite the fact that she lacks opposable thumbs, she somehow figured out how to open the refrigerator door. They say prison inmates, given enough time, can figure out how to fashion a weapon from a bar of soap or a toothbrush or anything handy, really. They put MacGyver to shame. I guess all those days alone with nothing to do but roam the apartment led Rannie to use her time wisely. Why nap on the windowsill when you can hit the buffet?
Thereafter, I began barricading the refrigerator, alternating between the trash can and the ironing board. Still, the cat is nothing if not a hairy opportunist. She simply waited me out. More than once, I got sloppy and forgot to put a heavy object in front of the door. On each occasion, just like a big-league power hitter waiting for the right pitch, she made me pay. That is, she did what cats do: She pounced and helped herself to my groceries.
At my wit’s end (which, considering how little of it I have, wasn’t a hard point to reach), I consulted several veterinarians. I told them about the criminal mastermind living under my roof, about her insatiable appetite, and how, while she was growing fatter on my food, I was slowly wasting away in both mind and body. I didn’t just ask for their help -- I begged them. (Ever seen a grown man cry in a veterinarian’s office? They hadn’t either.)
“So she has a taste for meat, eh?” one especially swift veterinarian said.
“You could say that,” I responded. “She would probably eat some of your forearm if it were seasoned properly.”
Surprisingly, none of the vets was terribly helpful. One suggested putting her on high-fiber diet food in an attempt to fill her up quickly and, the theory went, to control her appetite. No go. It just made her bloated. Another doctor asked me if I had considered storing my food somewhere else. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and it made me wonder if he had a sock drawer full of sweaty bologna and mildewed cheese.
The last vet sent me home with a (rather expensive) contraption that she promised would do the trick. It was kind of like an air freshener that you plug into the wall. But instead of making the apartment smell nice, it was supposed to release chemicals to help control Rannie’s appetite and to keep her from overgrooming. (She’s obsessive-compulsive about grooming. Seriously.)
Alas, it didn’t work. I caught her in the fridge just the other night, and I think her grooming has actually increased. Plus, she scratches herself all the time now. On the positive side, though, I’ve noticed that I don’t scratch as much as I used to.
JOHN GONZALEZ is a staff writer for Boston magazine.