A Kitchen Mystery and Proof That My Cats Are Dumb Like Foxes

For your Monday reading enjoyment, a mystery and a musing:

The Mystery

Why is there a knife missing from my kitchen knife block, where is it and who put it there?

It's a Chicago Cutlery knife with maybe a 7" blade. It's been gone for months, but, naturally, NO ONE knows where it is. I have checked every drawer in the kitchen, thinking someone put it away in the wrong place (which is a joke, really, since I'm the only one who ever actually puts stuff away in the kitchen). I looked behind the stove, although it would have been quite a fete to have gotten it back there. No knife. WHERE THE HELL IS IT?  It was my favorite one, next to my completely awesome Wusthof one. 

The Musing

My cats eat from a continuous feeder, so it's a 24/7 kitty buffet around here (which explains Pete). All is copacetic until the silo part of the feeder (the cow analogy is not lost on me here) starts to get low. When this happens, the dish doesn't fill. I don't understand why it doesn't, gravity being what it is, but it doesn't and that's that. It is a simple matter to force the food to fall into the dish by (a) gently giving the reservoir a shake (if you have opposable thumbs) or (b) sticking a paw into the opening, WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE FOOD HOVERING, causing the food to dislodge and fill the dish (for those of us with paws and half a brain). 

Then there's the third option: act like cutting horses and herd me into the kitchen to the empty bowl, sit beside it with pitiful kitteh eyes, and throw in a mournful yowl or two. Don't help yourself by poking it with a paw (and this is doable, because my previous cat did it, and she was no rocket scientist genius fool).  They just stare at me when I say, 'STICK YOUR STUPID FOOT IN THERE AND GET IT YOURSELF, YOU MORONS!"

And then I give in and shake the food down.

And, smugly, they dine.