Leonardo da Pinchy
Most cat owners dread their pets bringing home mice or birds. But for the owners of one felonious feline in Auckland, New Zealand, there’s a worse shame – being the accomplice to an unstoppable one-cat crimewave. His prolific laundry-pinching from clotheslines and bedrooms in the placid beachside neighborhood of Mairangi Bay has turned 15-month-old Leo into a local celebrity and earned him a new moniker. He now goes by “Leonardo da Pinchy.” And he’s got expensive taste. His frequent hauls include silk boxer shorts, thick men’s work socks and in one mortifying episode for his humans, a brand-new $181 cashmere sweater. “My daughter was at home sick and she rang me at work saying, ‘It’s bad, it’s bad, this is the worst thing he’s brought in, it’s really bad,” said Leo’s owner, Helen North. “Because it was beautiful. I was like, ‘Ooh, can I keep that?’ But I couldn’t.”
Instead, Helen turned to a neighborhood WhatsApp group to return Leo’s stolen goods to their rightful owners. Her usual message: “Are these your undies?” But the pilfered stash kept piling up: socks (piles), underwear (loads) and even a 5-foot-long stuffed snake (bizarre). On one record-setting day, Leo returned with nine items, enough for a full outfit if you didn’t mind a mix of everything from baby clothes to menswear. “He brought in a jersey this morning at 10 past 8, the stores hadn’t even opened.” With dozens of items unclaimed, the embarrassed owner took her search for Leo’s victims wider this month, posting photos of his hauls on a local Facebook page along with an apology and her address. Those who showed up to claim their belongings included a woman who recognized her pink and purple underpants and a boy whose beloved and missing sports jersey was helpfully identifiable by his name printed on the back.
The ire Helen expected over Leo’s cat burgling antics didn’t eventuate — although one of his targets, who is allergic to cats, now dries her laundry indoors. “All of our neighbours think he’s amazing,” she said. “Some of them are quite put out that he hasn’t actually stolen anything of theirs.” Still, Helen has tried everything to curb her cat’s laundry obsession, from attempting to keep him indoors to leaving out clothes at home for him to steal. No luck. “He only wants stuff that he shouldn’t have,” she said, adding that she was also unwilling to risk an online suggestion that Leo simply needed another playmate. “He might teach another cat to do this,” Leo’s life of crime began when he was first allowed outdoors a year ago. But his family hopes it’s just a juvenile phase. “I hope he grows out of it because I don’t want to do this for like, 15 years,” North said.
“All around the world there are cats doing this, yet it has never been studied.” She now hopes that will change. There was another clothing crime spree, perpetrated this year by a mother and her two offspring in the small town of Frigiliana in Spain, has made unneighborly interactions somewhat awkward for their keeper, Rachel Womack. But for scientists such as Hiemstra, it has provided fresh impetus to study the animals. She says: “When it comes to cats, normally the explanation is they’re doing it for themselves.”
Burglar bungles
Two burglars are robbing a liquor store.
One turns to the other and asks, “Is this whiskey?”
The other replies, “Yeah, but not as wisky as wobbing a bank.”
A burglar broke into our house last night…
I didn’t fight back, I just put the red laser dot on his forehead and the 3 cats did the rest.
Time to change careers. This cat burglar thing isn’t working out.
Too many friggin’ scratches.
When the store I work at was burglarized.
An investigating officer asked me where I was between 5 and 6.
He didn’t seem pleased when I answered: “Kindergarten.”
May 28th Birthdays
1944 – Gladys Knight, 1988 – Jessica Rothe, 1965 – Shania Twain, 1982 – LeAnn Rimes
1908 – Ian Fleming, 1972 – Marco Rubio, 1986 – Michael Oher, 1969 – Jack Black