Do your cats jump onto the table while you’re eating? Some of our cats do…Not all of them, usually just Pandora and Potter, and sometimes Pixie who, however, just wants to be with us and doesn’t care about the food we’re eating.

All the other cats have better things to do, like sleep. 😉

Well, for yesterday’s dinner I’d prepared herb chicken, and the sauce was a lovely reddish color because of all the paprika I’d used. This will be an important detail for later in the story.

Stefano and I sat down to eat, with Pandora and Potter on the table, watching us closely, just waiting for a false move on our part.

At first, we managed to fend them both off. We’ve become quite good at keeping sneaky cats at bay by building barriers in front of our plates, using all sorts of things, covered pans, wine or beer bottles, and even my huge bottle of curcumin.

Pandora finally gave up, moving to a corner of the table and lying down…with her eyes still on us, though. You never know, right?

But Potter stood his ground.

He even ignored all the beer caps (his favorite toy) that we sent flying over his head to get him to jump off the table. This time our strategy didn’t work. He was focused.

All of a sudden, like a cobra striking its prey, Potter leapt forward and dipped one of his front paws into the chicken pan, which had been left slightly uncovered, by mistake (our fault for relaxing a bit).

Potter gave a quick lick to the sauce on his paw, but evidently he didn’t care for the taste of paprika. He had to get rid of it ASAP, right? And so he began madly shaking his paw in various directions. Sauce droplets flew all over the place, hitting us, the tablecloth, and, worse!, the WHITE wall behind the dining room table. Aggghhh!

Stefano and I jumped into action like two ninjas. Stefano ran into the kitchen, grabbing paper towels and various sorts of cleaning liquids. He then tried to clean the spots on the wall, but you can still see them this morning. Oh well…

Note: from now on, Potter will be known as Jackson Pollock (Harry) Potter.

As for me, I grabbed Potter before he could do any more damage, rushed him over to the kitchen sink and put his still-smeared-with-paprika-sauce paw under the running water. Luckily, Maine Coons like water, so he let me rinse his paw, which, however, is still a bit yellowish today…

Okay, fine, all set, we’re back at the table to finish eating.

But then, later on in the meal, incredibly!!!, as soon as Stefano had gone to the kitchen to get I-forget-what, Potter grabbed a piece of Stefano’s chicken and pulled it off the plate before I could stop him…I mean, he did that right in front of me, and I was watching him like a HAWK!!!

Wow, he’s good.

Before Potter’s arrival, we thought we’d reached the height of expertise in Food Defense, but the game has changed, evidently.

We’re going to have to learn new skills now that the new Master of Food Thievery has joined our family…But, gee, he’s just a KITTEN! I tremble to think what he will be able to accomplish in the years to come. Mamma mia.

Note to myself: I need to have my cell phone with me even during dinner so that I can record these incidents. I have no photos from yesterday evening! Oh well.

If you have a similar story, I’d love to hear (read) it! 🙂

(Here’s the link to a cute Simon’s Cat video, more or less on the same topic: Simon’s Cat. Fast Food)