When the cat's away . . .

the mice will play-- in this case, when Mommy Cat (me) is out of the kitchen and food is left unattended, Alice and Brit think it's snack free-for-all time. Little known feline fact: Cats are omnivores. Serious omnivores. Forget all that carnivore stuff-- cats, or at least MY cats, eat whatever looks like it should be eaten.

So here's the scene: Last Saturday I bought goat cheese at the Farmers Market. It was a splurge, but I never can find decent cheese here, let alone goat cheese that reminds me of southern France. And hey, it's locally made (well, in Maryland-- that's kinda local)! So I bought it. I also went to the artisan bakery downtown (one bright spot in Morgantown's offerings) and bought a loaf of sourdough bread to eat with the cheese. I decided to have some for dinner tonight to go with my pasta. I put the cheese out on the counter to warm up a bit from being in the fridge. Then I left the room.

Therein lies the problem. Food items cannot be left unsupervised in my kitchen, even when the cats are sleeping upstairs. They have some kind of internal alarm that says, "Attention all felines! Unattended food on the counter! Go investigate!" It's not like the cheese was out of its wrapper. It was sealed in a plastic baggie! Sneaky, quiet kitties tore into the baggie and ate a big hunk out of the cheese while I answered e-mails, oblivious to the cheese carnage two rooms over.

I hope the cats don't throw up plastic and goat cheese later tonight. Note to Jen West, whom I have teased about her Lab puppy who eats absolutely everything: I have now received my just desserts for teasing you about Scooby eating an entire box of chocolates, including the box and candy wrappers. And the head off your daughter's Polly Pockets doll. And the covering on the soccer ball.

Other items my cats have eaten when I was otherwise occupied: raw mushrooms, cooked broccoli, cold pizza (again, torn through a plastic baggie-- but they didn't throw up, so I'm hopeful about tonight's incident), anything they can haul out of the garbage under the sink (which is why I have a child lock on it now), and the streusel topping off muffins I was taking to seminary on a Monday morning. Note to any of my former seminary students who may be reading this blog: I didn't feed you the muffins the cats sampled, I promise! At least, I don't think I did . . . that was five years ago. If I did, you didn't catch any noxious disease from cat saliva, right?

I promise my cats won't taste test food I serve you for dinner . . .