Never leave a tomato alone in a house full of cats...

As some of my readers know we live with six cats and one dog.  One of the cats stays outside most of the time but the remaining five never go outside.  Needless to say five cats make for some interesting times.  The following story chronicles just the latest example of a life lived in a cat's world.

Yesterday evening the wife and I had to be at the high school to work on a PTA fundraiser.  A beauty pageant if you must know, but that's a story for another day!  Anyway, back to my story.  We had to be at the school pretty early and knew we wouldn't be home until late.  We didn't have time to eat before we left so since dinner was going to be late we wanted it to be a light meal.  We decided to have a taco salad.  The plan was to have everything prepared ahead of time and then put it together when we got home.  I stopped at the grocery on the way home and bought the ground beef, taco seasoning, tortilla chips and a tomato.  The wife went on to the school.  I browned the beef, put it in the fridge and left for the school a little later.  Little did I know that events had been set in motion that would have me questioning my sanity within just a few short hours.

So we got home and that's when the trouble began.  I started to get out all the ingredients for the salad starting with the tomato that needed to be diced.  I had left the tomato on the counter next to the tortilla chips....or so I thought.  When I went to get the tomato this is what I saw......

Notice what's missing?  Yea, the tomato was gone.  I know it was right there.  I poured it out of the grocery bag when I got home.  But no tomato now.  I moved all the stuff around on the counter.  Still no tomato.  What the heck happened to my tomato?  

This is where old people like me start to worry a little.  Okay, so I'm about to turn fifty-three.  Maybe I've got early onset senility!  Did I really put the tomato on the counter?  Did I really take it out of the bag?  Did it fall out of the bag in the car?  Shoot, did I really buy a tomato or an even more disconcerting thought, did I, in fact, go to the grocery store?!  It sure seemed like I did but maybe I blacked out and it was just a dream!  No, I KNOW I bought a tomato, brought it home and left it right there on the counter!  What next?

Okay, I'm an engineer, I solve problems every day!   So how to methodically solve this?  Where could I have left the stupid thing if it didn't actually make it to the counter?

How about the car?  No tomato in the car.

Could it be in the trash in the kitchen?  Luckily the trash had just been emptied that morning.  No tomato in the trash.

What about the big trash dumpster in the garage?  It's pretty empty as well thank goodness.  Still smells bad in the dumpster though.  No tomato there either.

Did I accidentally drop it in the garbage disposal?  Nope.

Well, it's nowhere to be found.  I've pretty well ruled out all the causes that could be my fault so it's time to explore the possibility that an outside influence caused the disappearance of our tomato.  Meet the most likely outside influence....

Jasper the Cat

Like most trouble that happens in this house I now suspect a feline!  And anytime we suspect cat trouble we go looking for Jasper.  He's my daughter's cat and he's the orneriest of the bunch.  This caper has his catprints all over it!

This changes things.  If Jasper got on the counter he wouldn't see a tomato but he would see a nice, shiny, red ball.  And as every cat knows balls are meant to roll.  So, if he's the culprit, the tomato is almost certainly on the floor.  Let's go get the flashlight, because it helps fifty-three year old guys like me to have extra light, and find this tomato.  It must be here on the kitchen floor so let's go look...

(DISCLAIMER:  Photos which follow represent depictions of actual events and may not accurately reflect actions of the author or other human members of this household!)

Is it under the kitchen table?

No.  In fact, it's not anywhere in the kitchen.  How about the living room?

Is it under the sofa?

No.  In fact, it's not in the living room either.  Next, the dining room.

AND THERE IT IS!!!

Stupid Jasper had rolled the tomato off the counter and then rolled it through the house.  No doubt for most of the time we were gone.

My reaction....

Aarrrgh !!!

I thought I was losing my mind and Jasper was just playing ball.  And from the looks of things he, and most likely a couple of his feline friends, had a pretty good time chasing, clawing, and chewing this poor tomato.  And since cats don't play gently, the outcome was largely predictable if not entirely disturbing....

NO TOMATO FOR THE TACO SALAD TONIGHT!

So that's about it from the Ponderosa!  No tomato for taco salad last night but at least I'm not going insane.  Although sometimes I think someone is conspiring to drive me mad....

The End

NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED DURING THE FILMING OF THIS BLOG POST! 

(...but it was considered...)