The other day I found some nice cotton-knit (t-shirt material) trousers to wear at the gym and, since my old ones were looking a bit worse for wear, I bought two pairs and left them in a bag in the hallway on top of our mineral water bottles – I’d wanted to try them on before washing them in case I had to exchange them for a different size. But when I went to try them on yesterday morning the bag was gone. 😕
After searching the whole flat – and with neither of us remembering having moved or even having touched the bag – the only explanation we could come up with was that Nog must have absent-mindedly thrown it away thinking it was a bag of rubbish. So we went back to the shop yesterday evening and Nog bought me two more pairs of cotton trousers as a replacement, which was very kind of him, though the whole thing still felt like a complete mystery.
Then last night I was changing the sheets and moved the bed out from against the wall a bit . . . and there was the bag! In Azar’s lair, next to his little rug (the lair was one of Azar’s “safe places” during the cat fight era so I put a small rug there to make it more comfortable). I was totally gobsmacked and showed this new evidence to Nog and we ended up even more puzzled than when we’d both agreed he must have thrown the bag away. But we couldn’t argue with the evidence – one of the bag handles was broken (and was looking rather chewed) and the bag itself was covered in telltale claw holes.
For the record, Azar has always been a bit of a packrat and often when things go missing I’ll look either under the sofa or in his lair. But these are usually small items like scrabble tiles, earrings, etc, though he has also been known to pry open the plastic storage boxes that we have under the bed and take out a towel or other comfy article of clothing to lie on (this was before I got him his own rug). But to drag a whole plastic bag of clothes under the bed! We still can hardly believe it. But at least we’ve managed to clear Nog’s name and we’re still chuckling whenever we think of Azar dragging the bag under the bed, no doubt feeling very clever and sneaky indeed. 🙂
cat burglar pic from the Ernst Gallery 
casa azahar 
Oh my, oh my!
Hmmm, wonder if this behaviour is common amongst cats?
*ponders whether the Cats of the Lair can be blamed for missing socks; computer cables and other items not where they’re suposed to…*
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I think it depends on the cat. Sunny never hides stuff. And I never understood why Azar would bat stuff under the sofa since he wouldn’t be able to get at it either. But I’m quite used to finding all sorts of stuff in his lair under the bed … just didn’t suspect that he’d been going for ‘bigger game’ lately.
There are four of those plastic storage boxes on wheels under the bed and the lair is behind the last two, right up against the wall under the head of the bed. So Azar feels quite cosy and safe under there and, it would seem, also likes ‘decorating’ from time to time.
Sunny, being a dog, doesn’t really have a lair. He sometimes likes hiding out under the bed too but doesn’t use Azar’s rug – weird little territorial beasts, aren’t they?
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Toys en masse are usually found under sofas, book shelves etc, but that I’ve always considered to be accidental.
Putte aka the Big Hunter occasionally carries away a crocheted kettle-holder or so, but I’ve never seen any of them hide thing on purpose.
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Well, I know that Azar is the cat burglar around here because he’s been caught in the act so many times.
Meanwhile, do they ever play with the little cat toys I bought – cute liitle balls with tinkly bells inside? No way. Yet somehow pens, scrabble tiles and plastic clothes pegs are irresistable … go figure.
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No, the toys you buy are never “ccol” enough, are they? I bought a toy “mouse” that was made of felted wool that really mimicked the real thing quite nicely. They never touch it. But every once in a while, I will hear a “clunk” from my counter and find that Mike has been sitting on his cat tree, finagling something off the counter, just so he can hear it hit the floor, not because he wishes to play with it.
I have learned to check the “lair” under my bed quite frequently, because when Mike catches a mouse in the middle of the night he usually takes it under there and then stashes it for “emergencies” — like when I forget to feed him (which is never). It is not very nice to find a half decomposed or mummified mouse under the bed. . .
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The other curious thing about this incident is that while neither of us actually believed that Nog had tossed out the bag it was the only logical explanation, since clearly bags don’t get up and walk away by themselves. I mean, Nog has a tendency to be absent-minded but we both reckoned that he’d have noticed the bag had clothes and not garbage (or stuff for recycling)in it. Yet until further evidence came our way we stayed with that theory. Weird.
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Okay, how does a hairbrush disappear? I suspect the cat burglar but I checked his lair just now and all I found was Sunny (?) and the brick we use as a doorstop (??). Perhaps he read this post and has since found a new secret hiding place.
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I was doing some googling and found this post…check out my blog about my thieving cat! Azar isn’t the only cat out there that likes to pilfer people’s belongings. 🙂
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That is hilarious! Thanks so much for stopping by and letting me know about Simon – I recommend that everyone here go and have a look too. 🙂
I suspect that if Azar was an indoor/outdoor cat like Simon he’d do a lot more pilfering. By the way, the hairbrush was just misplaced, not stolen, but Nog did find the remote control for the heater in The Lair the other day.
It’s time for a serious under-the-bed clean out … quite curious as to what we’ll find there.
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