Living With Yogi Bear

Every year Pony Express makes me a birthday cake. It's extremely generous of and time consuming for her, especially when I refuse to pick a cake but specify a work-intensive frosting. I like German Chocolate Cake frosting a lot. A whole lot. Once she's done all that work she carries the cake to wherever we happen to be celebrating in her fancy pie basket that looks basically like this.

We celebrated on Sunday and I have been hoarding the cake ever since. We did a good job on it at my brunch gathering, ate more than half, so I was eating it a piece at a time, knowing that I wanted to finish it before the last slice was more cracker than cake. It was a close brush but last night I was going to eat the last piece and I was sure that at least half of it would still be in prime condition. Also, frosting!

Imagine my surprise when I lifted the hinged lid of the pie basket, looked inside, and discovered a massacre! Someone, and I honestly can't be sure who, had licked almost all the frosting off the last healthy-sized chunk of cake.

Let's go over the crime scene. Time of death had to be during the day yesterday because I had a bite of cake before I left for work. While I was away someone had to have gotten up onto the dining room table, sniffed out the cake, lifted the lid of the basket, licked all the frosting off the top of the cake, flipped the top layer of cake off the bottom layer, licked almost all the frosting off the bottom layer of cake, closed the lid of the basket, gotten off the table, and fallen into a sugar coma. It's possible they flipped the lid up and did the work while the lid rested uncomfortably on the back of his or her neck then slipped out so the lid gently slapped back into place. How did they know not to eat the cake, which was chocolate and therefore toxic?

Actually that last leads me to believe it was the work of the dog. The cats, who are not above grand larceny when the opportunity arises, tend to just start with the first irresistible thing they encounter and eat until they hit bottom. I have had to extract them from cereal box jails and dog food bag paradise. The bungee cord that holds my pantry doors shut isn't an earthquake safety measure. There's no finesse to their work. The dog, though, cracked into a box of holiday cookies and spread them all over the living room but only actually tasted about three things and none of those were the things that could have killed him. He didn't damage the box or the plastic wrap used in the packing. Also, he was pretty amped when I got home last night.

There is never a dull moment when you live with a miniature Yogi Bear. Perhaps I have finally learned not to let him near my pickinick basket.