Kitty soup

[Gorfel]

Clutching their Dillard's shopping bags, Ellen and Kay woefully gazed
down
at the ex-cat in the mall parking lot. Obviously a recent hit---no flies,
no
smell.
"What business could that poor kitty have had here?" murmured Ellen.
"Come on, Ellen, we've got to just..."
But Ellen had already grabbed her shopping bag and was
explaining,"I'll just put my things in your bag, and then I'll take the
tissue..."
She dumped her purchases into Kay's bag and then used the tissue
paper
to cradle and lower the former feline into her own Dillard's bag and cover
it.
They continued the short trek to the car in silence, stashing their goods
in
the trunk. But it occured to both of them that if they left Ellen's burial
bag
in the trunk, warmed by the Texas sunshine while they ate, Kay's Lumina
would
soon lose that new-car smell.
They decided to leave the bag on top of the trunk, and they headed
over to Luby's Cafeteria. After they cleared the serving line and sat down
at
a window table, they had a view of Kay's Chevy with the Dillard's bag still
on
the trunk.
BUT not for long. As they ate, they noticed a black-haired woman in
a
red gingham shirt stroll by their car, look quickly this way and that, and
then hook the Dillard's bag without breaking stride. She quickly walked out
of
their line of vision.
Kay and Ellen shot each other a wide-eyed look of amazement. It
all
happened so fast that neither of them could think how to respond. "Can you
imagine?"finally sputtered Ellen. "The nerve of that woman!"
Kay sympathized with Ellen, but inwardly a laugh was building as
she
thought about the grand surprise awaiting the red-gingham thief. Just when
she
thought she'd have to giggle into her napkin, she noticed Ellen's eyes
freeze
in the direction of the serving line. Following her gaze, Kay recognized
with
a shock the black-haired woman with the Dillard's bag, THE Dillard's bag,
hanging from her arm, brazenly pushing her tray toward the cashier.
Helplessly they watched the scene unfold. After clearing the
register, the woman settled at a table across from theirs, put the bag on
an
empty chair and began to eat. After a few bites of baked whitefish and
green
beans, she casually lifted the bag into her lap to survey her treasure.
Looking from side to side, but not far enough to notice her rapt audience
three tables over, she pulled out the tissue paper and peered into the bag.
Her eyes widened, and she began to make a sort of gasping noise.
The noise grew. The bag slid from her lap as she sank to the floor,
wheezing and clutching her upper chest. The beverage cart attendant quickly
recognized a customer in trouble and sent the busboy to call 911, while she
administered the Heimlich maneuver. A crowd quickly gathered that did not
include Ellen and Kay, who remained riveted to their chairs for seven whole
minutes until the ambulance arrived.
In a matter of minutes the curly-haired woman emerged from the
crowd,
still gasping, strapped securely on a gurney. Two well-trained EMS
volunteers
steered her to the waiting ambulance, while a third scooped up her
belongings.
The last they saw of the distressed cat-burglar, she disappeared behind the
ambulance doors, the Dillard's bag perched on her stomach!

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An airplane will kill you quick . . . a woman takes her time.