The Tabby, the Joker & The Box

I awoke with the knocking on the door to my apartment, the peperoni pizza and two lager I had the night before took its toll, and I wasn’t that quick on getting up and the dreams I had about some scantily dressed actress from the movie I had watched while eating said pizza I wasn’t too quick to get away from, but the knock was followed by the ringing of the doorbell. With mild hesitation I moved the 40 feet from my bed to the front door, making sure I had some semblance of clothing on for when I would finally open the door.

Even though only 30 seconds had passed, when the door was opened there was nobody there, nothing was there except for the three stray cats I and several other neighbors look after, they were all screaming like they hadn’t eaten in a week and not some few odd hours before. I also noticed one of the neighbors, but intently paid him no mind for the moment.

“Okay, I’ll feed you guys in a minute,” I groaned out. To the side of my door is an old storage container that I converted into a cat shelter, complete with a cutout door and a blanket, and that was where I first spotted the cardboard box sitting on the top of the shelter. It was about the size of a shoebox.

The box was wrapped in plain brown paper and had no markings on it, no black letters underscored with a curved arrow that represented a smile, nor did it have four bright letters so I quickly and very outwardly eliminated the possibility of it being something I ordered online from either of those places, which is something that I frequently do. I picked it up and noticed that despite its size, it was light and at first I figured it to be an empty box that one of the neighbors had meant to discard and got as far as my front door.

On weighing it in my hand I noticed that it had *some* weight to it, around three pounds worth, and while there were no markings because of the paper, there was an address label with my name and address only on it, no return address, no mailing tags, which told me whoever it was from was local, very local.

With the cats watching my every move, I looked at the package in my hand not sure of what to do with it. Usually, packages have a return address on it, but not this one. Throwing caution to the wind, I took the package to the middle of the parking lot. After all, not knowing who sent it, or even the point of origin I wanted to be cautious. It could have been anything including a glitter bomb or some sort of other mail prank.

I sat it down and pulled out my pocket-knife and carefully slid the blade under the tape that was on the brown paper that covered the box, the tape was cut, no explosions. However, the cats being their playful curious selves followed me to where I had decided to open the package.

“Alright, I’ll feed you guys in a minute,” I stare the package down for a moment, keeping in mind that the neighbor was still there, “after I figure out what the hell this is.”

I began to rip at the end of the paper wrapping with a slowness and caution so I could slide the paper off the box without disturbing the box itself. On seeing the box, it revealed nothing, the cardboard was as plain as the brown paper that was wrapped around it. It was able to be opened from the top and was secured with another length of tape.

“Mrow!” The tabby cat rubbed up against the box, almost as if it were anticipating my opening it and had some sort or an inkling of what was inside the box.

Finally, the tape that ran across the top of the box was gently slit, the first flap was gently pulled open and that’s when it came, the loud popping, cracking sound that made me jump out of my skin. I let out a curse as I threw myself away from the box.

It was then that I realized that I was a little hung over from the night before and the loud popping, cracking sound was coming from a string of noisemaker firecrackers that were left over from the holiday and one of the neighbors had thrown at me just to be funny. “Don’t do that!”

“The way you were being so dramatic about opening that box, I just couldn’t resist.” The neighbor was a tall, thin male, and stood over me as I still lay on the ground, he was holding another string of the noisemakers. For the last three days he was throwing them at unsuspecting neighbors and was still doing it just to get a laugh.

“Well, considering that it is an unmarked package point of origin unknown… I just wanted to open it safely.”

“I know exactly where it came from, I was out here when the package was delivered, and I know exactly what is in it,” he could see the cats rubbing up against the box, “so does Tabby.”

“As I knew you would be,” I muttered under my breath, a sinister smile came to my face, as I looked at the child-like neighbor with the firecrackers dangling from his hands.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“So,” I made my way back over to the box, and looked Tabby in the eyes, as I scratched her head, “you want what’s inside the box?”

“Mrow?!”

“Well, it’s not for you,” I looked up at the neighbor man, who was itching for me to just get the other flap pulled up, because that’s where the trigger wire was, something I knew all along. I turned to my neighbor who had a taste for practical jokes. “Since you seem to know what’s in it, you can pull the last flap open.”

“If that’s what you want, but you know it’s just a bag of cat food that was delivered,”

“If it is, then we’re all good,” I smiled, "but if not--."

“Just pop the damn flap open!” the neighbor ripped the second flap open with a vengeance.

As he did, I backed away because that’s when the bomb inside went off. It wasn’t an incendiary, but a bomb none the less, a popping explosion a mess of glitter, stinky perfume and water blew all over the neighbor who had been throwing the noisemakers at the neighbors. Now it was payback time. “Got ya!”

“It’s going to take me a week to get this glitter off of me!” The neighbor got a whiff of the stinky perfume. “Skunk oil?”

“Yes,” I looked at the string of noisemakers that the neighbor had somehow managed to hang onto, “maybe that will teach you not to throw those things at people,”

“Well, for your information, this is the last of them anyway,”

“Good,” I lit the fuse on the last string of noisemakers, and as they started to go off in his hand, I made my way back inside, as he tossed them aside. During the interaction, the stray cats all ran for safety, but they didn’t go far, just under some nearby shrubbery, so when I came back out I scattered some food on the ground like chicken feed, they finally began to race their way over to where their food was and eat.