The Mystery of the Brown Package

Cory woke up to the same thing everyday. His German Shepherd’s tongue licking his face. “I’m up, Oberon. I’m up.” He gently pushed Oberon away. Cory stretched and looked over at his wife, Caitlin. She was laying on her side with the pit bull T-Bone against her side in “dead dog” position, on his back , neck stretched out, and paws stretched in the air. The beagle, Momo, was in the middle at the end of the bed. All three were skilled experts at ignoring Oberon and his whiny needs. Oberon had a set schedule and made sure Cory followed that schedule.

“Come on, dude.” He climbed out of bed and staggered down the hall to the kitchen, Oberon prancing in his wake. Every morning, the boys were given a small treat of whipped cream. Cory felt if Caitlin needed coffee as a morning pick me up, then the boys could have something as well. Cory didn’t normally have anything because he simply woke up with tons of energy. It drove his wife mad, but at least things got done at home.

He opened the refrigerator and heard the other two boys scramble out of bed, his wife’s very audible groan, and the clicking of nails. Momo walked faster than T-Bone but T-Bone was his wife’s dog and he walked with his eyes half-closed before plopping down in front of the galley entrance. “Are you sure you guys are awake?” Cory laughed. He gave each dog a teaspoon of whipped cream, then turned on the coffee, and headed back to the bedroom.

Caitlin had rolled onto her back and was watching the bedroom door. “Why can’t our boys let us sleep in?”

Cory snorted. “Two of them would, but Oberon must have his treat at the right time.” He started pulling clothes out of his drawers.

“What time do you have to leave?”

“Here in a few minutes. I just gotta get some things together.” Cory was a soccer referee and the season had just started back up. His first assignment was a tournament in another city that would require him to be gone for the night. His organization was always short of referees and Caitlin had said that she was interested, but she also admitted that she wouldn’t be able to handle the back-talking individuals. It wasn’t just the talk, but the security and safety. It always bothered Caitlin that Cory had to, sometimes, be escorted to his car, because people couldn’t understand that it is just a game. “I started the coffee for you, but I haven’t put it in a glass.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get to it in a minute.” Caitlin gave T-Bone a scratch as he jumped up and stretched out beside her. “Do you think you will be back in time for dinner tomorrow, or do you wanna pick something up?”

Cory pulled his soccer gear out of the closet and placed it on the bed. “I’ll call you and let you know.” He started fishing through it, making sure he had everything he needed. Caitlin watched silently for a few minutes before getting up and moving into the kitchen. She put together in coffee, and moved to sit on the sectional. T-Bone had moved to sit in the window seat so he could see outside.

“See anything interesting out there, babe?” She asked as she took a sip of coffee. Cory glanced at T-Bone and smiled. It was a common occurrence that at least one of the dogs was in the window. Some of the neighbors even waved at them as they walked down the street.

“Okay. I believe I’ve got everything. Do you need anything?”

“If I did, it’s a little too late.” Caitlin laughed. “Have fun. Be safe. Let me know when you get there.”

“I will.” Cory kissed her forehead and headed to the door. T-Bone and Oberon went to follow. “Stay.” He shut the door and the dogs whined.

“It’s alright, boys. Go lay down.” She grabbed her tablet to read, and T-Bone went back to the window seat while Momo and Oberon went back to bed.

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A couple of hours later, Caitlin put her tablet down to take a shower. All three of the dogs had moved back into the master bedroom to sleep in the bed because it was cooler there than anywhere else. She smiled, took a picture of them, and sent it to Cory with the caption “must have been an exhausting morning.”

While she was in the shower, she heard the dogs suddenly start barking. One of her worst nightmares was being stuck in the shower while someone broke into the house. She kept an ear out in case their barking got worse or stopped altogether. When it gradually faded and she heard one of them jump back on the bed, her heart rate finally slowed down.

She got dressed and walked to the windows in the living room. Having heard the dogs barking, she decided to check if there was anything on the porch. She saw a brown paper package. As she opened the front door she noticed that it didn’t have any mailing address or return address on it. She hesitated before picking it up. Caitlin had read in the news about someone leaving packages of fecal matter on doorsteps. Instead of setting it on fire, they simply smeared it on the inside flaps so that it got all over the opener’s hands. Caitlin held it to her nose, but didn’t smell anything. However, when the dogs sniffed it, they went berserk, barking and jumping all over. Caitlin decided to put it on top of the fridge until she could talk to Cory. If he didn’t know what it was, she would ask where his car-cleaning gloves were, and then open it. T-Bone sat in front of the fridge and gave her his saddest puppy eyes.

Since she was waiting to hear from him, Caitlin decided to clean up some of the house. She vacuumed and mopped the hardwood floor, and washed the laundry as well as the blankets. She had just placed the last of the blankets in the dryer when her phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Cory sounded breathless. “Sorry. I meant to call you about an hour ago, and tell you I was here.”

“It’s okay. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just finished a game. You good?”

“Oh, yeah. Just cleaning the house.” T-Bone chose that moment to whine at her. “Hey, do you know anything about this package that just showed up?”

“What package?”

Caitlin pulled it down and snapped a quick photo of it. “I just sent you a photo of it.”

Cory must have been looking at the photo because he was silent for some time, before “No. I can’t remember ordering anything.”

Caitlin sighed. “Okay. Where are your car-cleaning gloves? I’m not opening this without protection.” He told her where they were in the garage before hanging up because he had another game. She went outside with the package, grabbed the gloves, and started to open it. Except she stopped and thought, maybe I should have a mask as well. Caitlin went back into the house and grabbed one of the masks they kept on the kitchen counter. She went back to the garage, put on her mask and gloves, and opened the package. She stared in complete shock.

Bacon. There was a stack of bacon packages in the box. Who in the world would leave us a package of bacon? She picked up one of the packages and read that these were dog treats in the form of bacon, tasted like bacon, smelled like bacon, but warning the user that it was not bacon. It explained why the dogs were losing their minds. Caitlin shrugged and took the package back in the house.

She texted what the contents were to Cory, and gave each dog a small piece. If something bad happened, she didn’t want it to hurt them. While she waited, she grabbed her tablet and went back to reading.

Cory called her a little while later, “Bacon?”

“Yeah. Weird, right?”

“Did you give them some?”

“About an hour ago. They don’t seem to be having any ill-effects.” In fact, the dogs were staring at her, probably hoping they could get another piece.

“Super weird. No indication as to who it was from?”

“Nope.”

After reassuring Cory that she would only give the dogs one more piece each, they hung up. Caitlin took the dogs outside to give them their second piece, and was playing with them when she heard the next door neighbor, Thomas.

“Hey, did you get that box I left on your porch this morning?”

“You mean the one with all of the bacon packages?”

“Yeah. Someone at work lost their dog recently, and had some left over. I told her my neighbor had three dogs, and she asked if you might want them. I figured if you didn’t, then you would know someone who might. I knocked but no one answered.”

Caitlin laughed because she was delighted at the solution to this mystery package. “I was in the shower when you knocked. I thought it was one of those prank poop packages.” Thomas laughed and reassured her that he would never do that.

Caitlin thanked him and texted Cory to let him know what had happened. He texted back, Thank goodness but maybe start taking a shower earlier in the day or at night instead? Caitlin just laughed and gave the dogs a third piece of bacon treat.