It happened just a few minutes ago. I heard the sound of a bag rustling upstairs. I had just spent the last half hour chasing Elvis away from every form of plastic in the house, going so far as to actually CLEAN up and remove any bits of plastic bag, plastic bubble wrap or plastic wrapping that was lying around because my stupid cat had decided that it was the day to eat plastic.

I rolled my eyes and considered leaving my reading and comfy couch to further stop this obsession. I listened carefully and determined that it didn’t sound like the furtive, chomp, chomp, chomp of Elvis’ plastic eating. It sounded like he was just playing with a plastic bag instead. Laziness overtook me and I went back to my reading, but the noise continued.

Then the noise moved. The sound of a plastic bag moved from a distant irritation to an approaching ruckus. I could hear it advancing from the bedroom to the staircase at an increasing speed. I put down my reading and got off the couch to investigate, but before I could get up even one stair, the crinkling was halfway down the stairs.

In a streak of white and gray fur, Elvis ran past me toward the kitchen, but the fluffy sound of the plastic bag was still coming at me from the staircase. In a panic, Maggie and the plastic bag rushed past me, following Elvis. She wasn’t chasing him, so much as she was chased by the bag wrapped around her neck. Rather than follow Elvis into the kitchen, she ran like a cheetah away from the noisy monster attached to her body. I laughed at her skittish attempt to escape the crinkle monster that she had unwittingly climbed through.

She rushed up the stairs, plastic bag in tow as I tried to grab her. I laughed again and followed to the bedroom level. Mike called from the top of the stairs, “I’m sure that was hilarious, but it just woke me up…” His groggy voice told me that he wasn’t fully awake. “You tied a bag to the cat?!” I finished climbing and rushed to defend myself, “I didn’t do it.” I was still laughing, trying to find where Maggie had hidden.

I followed Mike’s dazed gaze to my comfy chair in my office. I looked under the chair and there was a shell-shocked Maggie with the bag still around her neck. Her excited run had torn it to shreds, but it still hung strong around her neck. She cowered away from me as I reached under the chair. I grabbed the handle of the bag and removed it from her neck, trying my best to control my laughter.

It was the plastic bag that had brought home my boots from the store. I had removed the boots, wore them, deemed them completely unusable for winter snow and abandoned them, all without ever throwing away the bag on my bedroom floor. Maggie must have crawled in it, had a bout of play with Elvis and tried to escape through the handle instead of the proper opening. I could envision the entire event and I laughed.

I put my sleep-deprived husband back to bed and sat down at the computer keyboard. “I’ll just have to remember this,” I told myself.