Just when you think you know your cat, they pull off

Just when you think you know your cat, they pull off something so utterly, spectacularly out of character that you question everything you thought you understood about their furry, enigmatic existence.

For me, that cat was Mittens. And the “something” was orchestrating a full-scale, covert operation to liberate the entire contents of the neighbour’s bird feeder.

Mittens was a creature of predictable, almost spiritual, routines. Her day revolved around sunbeam migrations, the sacred ritual of the morning strech (a full five minutes of contortionist stretching before a graceful flop onto the rug), and the precise timing of her various mealtimes. She was, to put it mildly, not an adventurer. Her idea of high-octane excitement was chasing a dust bunny under the sofa. Her hunting skills extended to batting at my shoelaces, never quite making contact. She was a house cat, content in her upholstered kingdom, and I loved her for it.

Then, the bird feeder incident began.

Our neighbours, the elderly and incredibly patient Mr. and Mrs. Gable, had recently installed a magnificent, squirrel-proof bird feeder – a veritable palace of seeds and suet. It hung from a sturdy branch, high above the ground, with a large, polished metal baffle designed to thwart even the most determined rodent. It was their pride and joy, a constant flurry of wings and chirps that brought them immense pleasure.

One morning, the feeder was half empty. Unusually so. Mr. Gable initially blamed a particularly industrious squirrel, despite the baffle. The next day, it was almost completely empty. The Gables were puzzled. “Must be those new jumbo finches,” Mrs. Gable mused, ever optimistic.

I, too, was puzzled. And then, I started noticing things.

Mittens, normally asleep in the warmest spot on the couch by 9 AM, was gone. Not just “in the next room,” but gone. I’d find her later, looking strangely puffed up, a tiny smudge of something dark near her whiskers. I dismissed it as garden dirt.

Then came the rustling. Faint, intermittent rustling from the back of the pantry, where I kept the emergency cat food. I checked, found nothing. Blamed mice.

The true unmasking happened on a Tuesday. I was working from home, and Mittens, instead of napping on my keyboard, was unusually twitchy. She kept glancing towards the back door, then at me, then back at the door, her tail giving tiny, almost imperceptible twitches. It was her “I have a secret and I’m practically bursting” tail language.

Curiosity piqued, I followed her. She led me not to her food bowl, nor to a sunbeam, but to the small, forgotten crawl space access panel at the very back of the pantry. It was usually secured, but now, the latch was slightly ajar.

With a sense of growing dread (and morbid fascination), I knelt and peered into the dusty darkness. My flashlight beam cut through the gloom, illuminating… a hoard. A monstrous, undeniable hoard of birdseed. Piled high in neat, compact mounds, interspersed with smaller, glittering piles of what looked suspiciously like crushed suet. And right in the middle, sitting like a benevolent, furry overlord, was Mittens.

She looked up at me, blinked slowly, and let out a tiny, triumphant mew.

It wasn’t just some birdseed. It was all the birdseed. She had, somehow, over the course of days, cracked the uncrackable squirrel baffle. I imagined her, a tiny, agile shadow under the cloak of night, scaling the tree, leaping onto the feeder, and with paws far more dexterous than I ever gave her credit for, meticulously emptying its contents, mouthful by mouthful, into her secret underground lair. The “smudge” on her whiskers? Birdseed dust. The “rustling”? Her proudly guarding her bounty.

I stared at her, then at the treasure trove, and then back at my seemingly innocent, lap-loving housecat. Mittens, the queen of predictability, had transformed into a master cat burglar, a feathered-seed-heist architect.

We returned the birdseed (mostly, after sifting out the dust and a few stray cat hairs) to a baffled Mr. and Mrs. Gable, attributing it to a “very clever raccoon.” But I knew the truth.

From that day on, I never looked at Mittens the same way. Every purr held a hint of a secret plan. Every nap, a strategic pause between covert operations. Just when I thought I knew my cat, she pulled off the greatest heist in the neighbourhood, proving that behind those innocent, blinking eyes lies a mind capable of unimaginable feats of daring, all for the love of a good, pilfered snack. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.