Who Is It That's Stealing My food?

Jacob felt baffled. Who was stealing his food?

Four weeks ago, he left food on the bench. It was leftover from a wild dinner party with his neighbors.  By the time they had left, he needed to go to bed.

The empty plate was on the bench in the morning, but there was no food.

Over the next four weeks, food was not only taken from the bench but from the refrigerator as well.  He could not work it out.  If it were rats, heaven forbid, he could not believe they had mastered the art of opening the fridge. “The handle is too high for them anyway," he smirked.

No food was not missing from his cupboards, but he couldn't be sure without checking. Maybe it was too high (for the refrigerator-opening rats) or whatever.

“Who is taking my food?” he muttered to himself.

It was not the food but the mystery of who or what was taking it and how.

Was someone breaking into his house?

He had deadlocks on all the doors and windows, and wouldn’t he have heard them coming in?

He set a trap and waited in a chair for the whole night to see what was happening. 

He placed a chair in the family room. From there, he could see the refrigerator on the right and the kitchen table on the left.  He had some chicken on a plate in the refrigerator and a plate of biscuits on the table.  He felt like it was Christmas, and he was leaving a snack for Santa.

He sat down in the chair. All the lights were off, and his torch was on his lap, ready to catch the thief as they stole the food. After three hours of sitting, he checked his watch: 2:30 a.m.

He was dying to go to the toilet, but did not want to leave his post. He tried thinking about other things to distract himself, but nothing worked.

“Damn prostate,” he cursed himself.  I am going to have to go. Surely he could sneak to the upstairs toilet as if he were asleep up there. He’d be back before the thief could take anything. Couldn’t he?

He got up, put the torch on the chair, and set off. Halfway up the stairs, he stubbed his toe on the edge of the landing. “M-mmm-hmm—,” he cursed, trying not to make a sound, and stumbled on up the stairs. 

In the bathroom, he looked at his toe. “Shit, it's broken.”  It had already turned an ugly shade of blue-green-gray and hurt like hell.

He went to the toilet, let the toilet flush, and waited for a minute or two before going back down the stairs to his chair.  When he got back downstairs again, he had to check.

He turned on the light.  “Oh my God,” he exclaimed.  The biscuits were gone from the table.

He jumped up and opened the refrigerator.  The chicken was still there.  He closed it and quickly resumed his watch from the chair.

Jacob was on high alert in case the thief returned. His heart was pounding.

What if they were also hiding?  There were no open doors or windows.

He had been sitting there for ten minutes when there was noise.  Not really a noise, a creak. A dim light illuminated part of the kitchen.  Poised, ready to light up the kitchen when and if the refrigerator door opened, his hand was shaking.

There it was!

A bright light from the refrigerator cast the silhouette of a small boy. He grabbed the chicken and stuffed it into a bag.

“Not so fast,“ yelled Jacob.  “Who are you?”

Realizing he had nowhere to go, the boy froze.  “Sorry, sir, I'm so hungry!”

Jacob glanced at the open panel on the wall by the bench. A light shone from inside, casting shadows.

“Sit down here, son; we need to talk," said Jacob.

******