As if I don’t have enough trouble keeping track of the things I own with teenagers around the house, I have this cat. And the interesting thing about this cat is that she is quite a quiet little love by day. By night, however, she turns into a fearsome hunter of the most amazing objects. And as she is “hunting,” she likes to announce (with a shockingly loud meow) to everyone in the house that she has found something worth sharing.

Her favorite nighttime “prey” used to be anything in a plastic sandwich bag, and generally, the heavier, the better. For a while, she would carry a bag of mosaic tiles from the basement to the second floor each evening. Each morning, I would find the tiles on the floor and carry them back to the basement where they belonged. One very special night, she brought me “breakfast in bed,” a banana muffin in a bag that she retrieved from the kitchen counter.

Recently, she has a new favorite. She has discovered a paint brush which was never used, but clearly, I thought about using it for a project one day. I left it somewhere readily available to her, and she now looks for it each night. She carries it to the bedroom of one of the kids and leaves it—sometimes on the floor, sometimes in their beds…. The kids think it’s funny… and cute.

So now, when I say to them, “Has anyone seen my…?” I fully expect to hear them respond, “Who knows, Mom? Maybe the cat took it!”