Cookies, Milk, and a Carrot

When some of the weirdest things go missing, what does one woman think?

Cookies, milk, and a carrot. I gazed at the table for several long minutes, pondering over my strange loss. Christmas wasn’t for another few months, so Santa Claus was out of the question, unless he was doing a fall run. I had only been upstairs for a few minutes to find my papers for class, and the cool air of the dining room was supposed to keep my milk chilled. I clutched my empty plate to my chest as though it were a shield, glancing around the room in case the thief was still in my house. I thought that it could have possibly been a robbery, and the first thing that I noticed just happened to be something minor.

I ran to the living room and gasped.

Missing from my simple setup of a couch, end table, coffee table, bookshelf, television set, television stand, and beaded rug was the stack of newspapers that I had gathered on my end table. I was also missing a pair of fluffy slippers that I had left at the foot of the couch. I let out the breath that I had drawn in from my gasp and breathed slowly. I had expected for my television to be missing, or something else of high expense. Instead, the television was on and the news channel was playing on mute.

I returned to the dining room and thought hard about everything. I then sprinted into the kitchen and rifled through my “rainy day” money that I had hidden in one of the drawers. Every bit of money was still there, but I was missing all of the paperclips that had held the money together in stacks.

“What in the world?”

I entered the dining room once more and sat down at the table, resting my chin in my palm. Obviously the thief had known I wouldn’t be upstairs for too long, since he hadn’t stolen anything that would take up time, but I couldn’t get it through my head that the thief had stolen what he had actually stolen. “It was of so little value,” I muttered. “Why in the world would a thief take those things?”

A thumping sound coming from upstairs ended my chain of thought. I grabbed the only newspaper I had left and rolled it up, hoping that the thief hadn’t decided to bring a gun for his silly raid. My heart pounded in my chest, leaving a gripping fear in my bones. I edged to the wall near the bottom of the stairs and peeked around the corner…

…to see my husband wearing my slippers and carrying paper-clipped newspaper articles under his arm.

“Sweetheart! You silly man! You had me thinking that a thief was in the house!” I laughed excitedly.

“What did I do?” asked my husband, confused.

“I’ll tell you over this morning’s coffee. Why don’t I make some more cookies?” After what I had gone through, I was so relieved.

Author's Note

Please feel free to critique my work for grammatical errors, spelling errors, and other errors of similar importance. Also, I would like to know what you think of the story that is actually told.