Creepy Cat Detective Agency Part III
Give 'Em The Pickle... the investigation continues.
Pssst. This is far too long for e-mail format, so please click ‘ read more’ at the bottom to see the whole thing!
Dear Kula Diaries,
Welcome to Part III of The Creepy Cat Detective Agency: The Case of the Missing Nut Butter. If you haven’t read parts one or two, I would highly recommend reading (or listening!) to those first… otherwise, this story is going to make very little sense to you.
I want to start this week’s story with a brief word of gratitude — many of you have reached out to me and told me how much you’ve enjoyed reading this story, and that makes me so happy. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant to share this series at first, because most of my writing on The Kula Diaries had been a bit more grounded in entrepreneurial ‘know how’ and… reality. But, as I’ve learned, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And, for me, writing this story is an important part of the puzzle. Over the last few months, I have wanted to throw in the towel many times as I navigated choppy seas … and finding ways to express myself creatively has shown me, time and time again, that there is purpose to the things we cannot understand. I hope that this ‘fr-ictional’ (realistic fiction) story can be just as much a statement about how to navigate the waters of ‘real’ life … as it can be on how to navigate the world that we create in our own minds. Sometimes… that self-created world can be the most dangerous thing of all.
Thank you so much for being here… and with that, I’m very excited to share part III of this Creepy Cat Detective Agency mystery…
The Creepy Cat Detective Agency Part III: Give ‘Em The Pickle
My dad worked a lot when I was a kid. He wasn’t always home… and I absolutely hated doing math homework with him… but one thing that I never questioned was his professionalism and devotion to his job. At the peak of his career, he was promoted to a position within the SES (Senior Executive Service) branch of the federal government. When I wanted to become a park ranger in 2004 — seeking approval from my father —- I had told him that it was my goal to join the ranks of the SES branch. Within the National Park Service, Superintendents of parks such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon are considered SES employees.
And yet, even with my lofty aspirations, I had managed to screw up my Park Ranger job application. I sent it in late without including my college transcript, disqualifying me from a National Park Service job in 2004. I already felt like a complete disappointment, so I decided I’d never apply again. I gave up my dream of becoming a Park Ranger… and was 100% convinced that starting a nut butter company was a bad idea. Afterall, there were already so many people already doing it.
Day in and day out, I’d watch my dad go to work — he seemed so driven and passionate about what he was doing, even decades into his career. One day I asked him, “Dad, do you like going to work?”. He looked at me with a somewhat bewildered expression, “Anastasia, it isn’t about whether I like it or not… there are 350 people who work for me who are counting on me to be there. You get to a certain point in your career, and it isn’t about you anymore.” Later that day, as I served sodas and slopped sauerkraut into hot dogs, I tried to imagine anybody caring about what I did for a living. “Go easy on the kraut, sweetie,” a golfer had told me. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care if I were instantly vaporized into the ether… and I felt that way too.
When I had started Tiny Spoon Nut Butter, I thought I was making a difference. I hired my first employees, and I did everything that I could to support their dreams. Afterall, they were helping to support my dream. One of my first employees had been Steve… I had encouraged him, cheered him on, given him time off to pursue his own personal goals… and at the end of the day, he had stolen nut butter from me. Then, the HR Investigator who I hired to help me solve the theft… had also stolen money from me. I felt stupid and pitiful — it seemed like as hard as I tried to do something important, people just thought I was an easy target. Did anything I did even matter? Making nut butter felt pointless and sad… the thought of dragging myself into the office to churn out jars of nutty sumptuousness felt like such a worthless way to spend my life. I had wanted to use what I was doing to bring a bit of good into the world… and now it felt like I was struggling to find the good in anything — even in myself.
And now, here I was, holding onto a fuzzy toy mouse of a Victorian-pajama clad Cat Detective as we sped through some sort of cosmic wormhole so that I could re-live my past childhood trauma. I could hear the Cat’s voice echoing in my mind, “Don’t worry, we aren’t going back to the past again… if you want to go back there, that’s your choice.” I rolled my eyes a little bit. This Cat Detective needed to start to deliver on their promise of solving my case.
We came to a screeching halt, and the cozy scent of cinnamon buns hit my nose. I opened my eyes, and had no idea where we were… until I saw Lucy, one of my employees, standing at her oven. “This is creepy,” I told the Cat, “I feel like I’m a burglar.”
“Just watch,” said the Cat, ignoring my uncomfortable plea.
I watched as Lucy pulled a tin of fresh cinnamon buns out of the oven — they looked amazing. When Lucy first started working at Tiny Spoon Nut Butter, she was quiet and insecure. Eventually, she had confided in me that she had a dream to become a professional baker… but she quickly followed up by telling me that she’d never be successful. “Other people are already doing it”, she had said. “Other people are not you, Lucy! You are the only one who can bring your own unique voice and ideas and love to your baking.”, I had told her. Over the past few years, I had used every opportunity to try and uplift her ideas… I had even bought her a stand mixer for her 2nd anniversary at Tiny Spoon. Gradually, I had watched her confidence grow, and she had started to share some of her baked goods at work — much to the delight of the entire team. Now, I was getting a peek into a moment that would have never happened a few years ago. I had never seen cinnamon buns so fluffy and gooey before. I could hear a voice shout from another room, “How’d they turn out Lucy?”. Lucy shouted back, “I think I’ve almost got the recipe perfect!”
I watched as she sat down at her computer and started staring intently at the screen. I walked closer to get a better view, and I was shocked… Lucy was working on a logo for a baking company called Lucy’s Bake Shop . “Oh my gosh!”, I nearly gasped, “I had no idea she was doing this!”
“Of course you didn’t,” said the Cat, “You don’t regularly seem to make a habit of breaking into people’s homes.”
“Well,” I qualified, “I just had no idea that she was really going for it. I hoped that she would… but I knew that it had to come from within her."
“It looks like she’s starting to find a little bit of that confidence, doesn’t it?”
I thought back to a podcast interview that I had done a few months prior. When Tiny Spoon won the Butter Bank Awards, I had been interviewed about my success. The interviewer had asked me what was the most rewarding part of what I did, and without thinking, I had responded immediately, “My job is to uplift others and their dreams.” At most jobs that I had ever had, my dreams had never been considered. I was there to make money for the owner… and that was it. And while contributing to the success of the business was indeed important… I had recognized that the relationship between employee and founder needed to be more mutually beneficial than a simple paycheck. A paycheck wasn’t enough… it had to go beyond that, or I knew that I would be missing the point. Which is why, of course, it hurt so badly that I had been betrayed by one of my employees. And yet, as I stood here inhaling the most delicious cinnamon roll aroma that I had ever experienced, I knew that it was still important.
My eyes caught sight of something pinned to a small cork board across the room, and I wandered over to take a closer look. “A vision board!”, I exclaimed gleefully. I had added a vision board to the Tiny Spoon office when we first moved into a commercial building, and I had encouraged all of my employees to add their dreams — no matter how unrealistic they might seem. Now, with tears streaming down my face, I looked at the dreams that Lucy had for her life. In the middle of the vision board, on a hand written note, were the words, ‘Be the type of boss like Anastasia.’
“Maybe you do make more of a difference than you think,” suggested the Cat as I wiped the tears away from my face. As I looked at Lucy’s vision board, I thought back to a day many years prior when I had attended my dad’s retirement party. It had been hosted at a beautiful restaurant outside Washington D.C. and the room was packed. His co-workers had chipped in and hired an opera singer to perform an aria… and person after person had stood up to speak and shared the ways in which my dad’s work had influenced their lives. It was on that day that I had understood what he had meant when he said, “It’s not about me.” These people had depended on my dad… and he had given them something intangible that they would carry with them throughout their lives. He had, through his work, given them a sense of love… confidence… and kindness. He had encouraged and uplifted them and taught them something far more valuable than how to show up to an office and answer an e-mail. Was it possible that I was doing the same for my employees now? I watched Lucy’s eyes sparkle as she worked on her logo, and I saw the same glimmer that I had felt in the early days of Tiny Spoon Nut Butter. I saw the love and excitement that I had once felt reflected in her heart. Desperately, I wanted it back.
“It’s time to go, Anastasia”, the Cat informed me as it held the fuzzy mouse in the air, “We have more things to see.”
I took one last, deep inhale of cinnamon bun… grabbed the mouse… and closed my eyes.
Almost immediately, I felt myself going into a free fall. I panicked, “WHAT IN THE ACTUAL…!?”, I screamed in horror. I opened my eyes and to my absolute shock and terror, discovered that I was strapped into a rollercoaster car and in the middle of what appeared to be a vertical fall. The wind ripped at my hair and the skin on my face flattened with the speed of the descent, “WHERE ARE WE?!”, I screamed at the Cat. The Cat, emotionless as always, replied with an adrenaline-less tone as the rollercoaster car went into a corkscrew, “Wee”, it said with a voice that decidedly contained a lack of exclamation points.
“You just thought that you’d plop me from cosmic time travel onto a roller coaster without warning?”, I shouted.
“Well, now that you put it like that… yes.”
“What on earth does this have to do with solving my case?”, I demanded.
“Oh, this? Absolutely nothing.”, quipped the cat in a non-smirking, smirkish manner, “It was just on the way and I’ve been wanting to try this roller coaster for awhile now. I’m a bit of a connoisseur.”
I had to admit… this was wild. I looked around and started laughing. I was the founder of a nut butter company who had hired a Creepy Victorian time-travelling cat to help me solve a curious case of scandal within my organization… and here I was riding a rollercoaster at Six Flags. The absolute ridiculousness of it all hit me in an instant, and I started laughing…. and laughing… and I couldn’t stop laughing, even when the rollercoaster went upside down and tangled my braid into a knot. It was hard to take anything too seriously when I was flying around on a rollercoaster with a Cat Detective.
As the rollercoaster began to slow down, the cat looked… well… exactly the same as it always did, but I had a sense that it was feeling satisfied. “That was fun,” it said in a voice that sounded very much like it had not been fun, but had instead, been the most boring thing that had ever happened. For some reason, though, I believed it. “I guess it was,” I replied. I had a feeling that where we might be going next would not be quite as enjoyable. As predicted, the cat offered me the mouse… and we were gone.
The sympathy odor hit me harder than expected this time… I almost wished that I had bought the three-pack of Poo-pouri that I had seen at Costco the day before. Maybe if I spritzed enough of it, it wouldn’t smell so… repugnant. “Repugnant?”, I asked myself, “Is that even a word?”. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone… but quickly stopped. I had been working on breaking up with my cell phone addiction for months now, and instantly researching every single query was one of the habits I was trying to break. “Repugnant,” I repeated again, “I’m just going to have to stick with that word whether it’s right or not.”
I knew immediately that we were in Hagis’ apartment. The walls were an offensive beige — the depressing beige that came with the apartment. The carpet was beige too, and I felt a sense of heaviness and loneliness as I stood in the living room looking around. “So this is where he lives, eh?”, I asked the Cat. “Indeed,” said the Cat, directing my attention to a light emanating from a door in the hallway. I wandered down the hall, feeling a bit nervous and unsettled — this certainly didn’t look like the home of somebody who lived a very happy life. There were no photos on the wall… anywhere. As we walked through the kitchen, I peered into the fridge curiously… hot dogs and an open can of sauerkraut. The irony of the situation was not lost on me as I moved toward the light in the hall. Stopping just before the open door, I took a deep breath… and peered in.
Hagis Scuthins was sitting alone in a chair in a small office… he was talking on the phone and he sounded out of breath and worried, “I’ll get you the money!”, he said in an urgent and worried tone, “I’ve got a bunch of things going right now and it’s not going to be a problem.” I looked on the floor and saw piles of collection notices — including medical bills and an extensive series of collection notices from the Advocacy Society for Advocates for Advocates of America. Apparently, those advocates did not mess around with their certification fees. An e-mail was open on his computer and I craned my neck to look a bit closer:
Hagis sat in his chair, and as he got off the phone, he slumped over a bit and sighed. He seemed… lonely. I watched as he pressed ‘Send’ on his e-mail to Chris from the Pickle Company and I was surprised to see him open another e-mail in his Draft Messages folder… it was a message to me:
Hagis sat staring at the message for awhile. “Send it”, I pleaded silently in my mind, “Just send it!”. But, I knew that he wouldn’t. He hadn’t answered his phone in weeks and wasn’t responding to any of my messages. He hovered his mouse over the ‘Send’ button for what seemed like an eternity… and then closed the message. My heart hurt in a strange way for Hagis — the money he had stolen from me was already gone, and here he was, sitting alone in an apartment, seemingly using his time to try and hustle people for money. “Doesn’t he know that he could put this energy to good use and really make a difference?”, I asked the Cat, “Doesn’t he know that the most difficult things in his life could create the most beautiful opportunities?”. The Cat looked at me in a way that I knew conveyed sadness, “Maybe nobody ever told him that… or if they did… maybe he just never believed it.”
I walked out of the room in dismay. Hagis did feel bad about what he did to me, but he wasn’t grown up enough to actually apologize or even attempt to make it right. As we were walking back through the living room, my shoe kicked a small paper book that was wedged underneath a plaid recliner that looked eerily familiar. I reached down… picked it up … and opened it.
I looked around at Hagis’ apartment. He didn’t have a cat or a dog… or even a fish or an ant farm. He was very alone and it appeared that he spent his days trying to hustle people out of their money… but there was also something else. Underneath the facade of the scam, there was a very hurt and unloved little boy who wanted to be loved. At some point in his life, Hagis did have dreams… he had wanted to do something good in the world, and things had gone horribly wrong. He had lost his way — and now, I was starting to believe — he felt like he didn’t have any other choice. He saw himself as a victim who was entitled to the things that other people had — people like me, who were trying to make a difference in the world… and who were succeeding. There were differences between me and Hagis and the ways in which we experienced life, but there were also similarities — a shared need to be loved.
On my own journey, I had spent a lot of time looking for love outside of myself. I still remember the day when somebody asked me what my greatest fear in life was. I could have said being struck by a meteor… or being attacked by a giant crocodile in a swamp… or tasting sub-par nut butter… but instead, I had responded with an answer that was always on the tip of my tongue. “Disappointing my father,” I had said. For so many years, I had tried to follow ‘the path’ — the way that I was supposed to live, in order to make other people happy. No matter what I tried, it never seemed to work… and worst of all, I was miserable. After my incident with the aggressive swan and the sauerkraut, I had started to awaken to something new — a realization that I needed to, for once, start to follow the dreams in my own heart.
The Cat and I stood in the hallway for a few moments… I wasn’t sure what to say or how to feel about what I had seen. On one hand, I was furious about Hagis and knew that I needed to take action so that he couldn’t keep scamming small business owners — but on the other hand, I felt like there was something deeper that I needed to learn from the situation. I closed my eyes for a moment, and saw dark clouds swirling around me… the clouds of chaos and anger that I was feeling. Ever since the nut butter theft, I had felt uneasy and I had been having a hard time sleeping. It seemed impossible to get the situation out of my mind, and I felt like the dark cloud hadn’t lifted yet. The Cat looked at me with its judgy cat eyes, “Where is the darkness coming from?”. I closed my eyes tighter and tried, without knowing how, to look a little bit deeper. I saw myself walking into the dark clouds — I could feel the wind rushing around me combined with torrential rain and gusts of a strong storm. I took a deep breath and kept walking. From somewhere, deep within my heart, I heard the Cat’s voice in a low purr:
The storm you feel The chaos you sense It is not in The present tense The winds of the past The rain of the future These are wounds You cannot suture For wounds created Deep within Can only be healed When you begin To notice where The pain arises Is it from in your heart Or from outside it? The things you fear The hurt that is real Is creating more Of the way you feel Look beyond the clouds See where it's bright You'll notice a glimmer Of a peaceful light It's dim at first This inner glow But keep walking forward And soon you'll know That above the clouds Above the storm The sky is blue And the sun is warm Right now, in this moment You are simply here You are doing your best There is nothing to fear Let go of the pain And reach above And you will find Your infinite love.
I let the sage words of the Cat dance through my consciousness as I walked through the clouds — my eyes still closed. Suddenly, I could feel a little bit of warmth on my face. Hesitantly, I opened my eyelids just enough that I could sense a soft glow radiating in front of me. Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked around. I felt like I was encircled by a brilliant, luminous orb… which struck me as definitely not normal… but I wasn’t scared or alarmed in anyway. I felt a strange sense of connection with all things and a sense of peace that went far beyond anything that I had ever felt. My brain comprehended the Hagis scandal, but it didn’t seem to make me feel upset — I only felt a deep sense of love radiating from within me… and that love, to my surprise, seemed to include Hagis too. There was no anger… no disappointment… just peace. “What is this place?”, I asked. “It’s you,” the Cat said, “Or rather, it’s all of us. Let’s just say that it’s complicated. It’s something that you can feel… but something you probably can’t describe very easily.”
As I stood in the glowing orb, I gently twitched one of my fingers and could feel that it was tugging, invisibly, on something else… somewhere in the universe. “Everything we do is connected to something else… even the smallest thing,” I said in awe. The Creepy Cat subtly nodded. I felt a gentle breeze across my skin and a strange sensation that I could simply drift away — like dust — into the cosmos. Gradually, the sensation subsided and I began to notice that it was slipping away. Soon, it was just me and the Cat… and somehow, we were back in my office again. With urgency, I picked up my phone and started looking for a phone number. “What are you doing?”, asked the Cat. “I’ve got to call that pickle company… it wouldn’t feel right to knowingly let them get scammed!”
I quickly located the number for Give ‘Em The Pickle Co. and as I dialed, I made a mental note to visit their website to buy some artisanal dill spears… I loved pickles.
“Give ‘Em The Pickle, this is Chris… how can I help you?”, said a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hi… my name is Anastasia,” I said awkwardly, “And I’m the founder of Tiny Spoon Nut Butter…”
Chris interrupted me, “No WAY! I’m a HUGE fan of yours!! Didn’t you survive that swan attack and sauerkraut incident? Totally epic… and by the way I love your nut butter… the Vanilla Birthday Cake Flavor with Excessively Ridiculous Amounts of Sprinkles and Chocolate Chips is my go-to snack… I eat a scoop of it every single morning.” He paused to take a breath and then continued, “Ok, sheesh… I’m sorry… I haven’t even let you talk… what can I help you with? And can I send you some pickles?”
I laughed as I started, “Ok, well, this is a bit of a strange phone call… but I’m calling about somebody named Hagis Scu…”. I didn’t even have time to finish the name before Chris jumped in.
“Oh, Hagis Scuthins! Great guy. He’s a real advocate for dill producers and garlic farmers. I’ve been running short on my production numbers… Bread and Butter pickles are getting hit pretty hard… and I can’t figure out what is going on. I’ve hired him to interview my employees… I think he’s coming in next week… which reminds me… I need to pay him…”. Before he could finish, I jumped in frantically, “Please don’t! That’s what I’m calling about. I hired him too… but he stole my money and never completed the investigation… I just wanted to warn you.”
Chris let out a shocked gasp, “Whaaaat?! Oh my gosh… you’re kidding… he seemed like such a great guy… such an advocate and all…”.
“I have no anger or hate for Hagis, actually… and I genuinely hope that he changes the tune of his business practices… But I do know that what he’s doing is wrong and hurtful to small businesses… so I just wanted to let you know.” I felt relieved as I warned Chris. “Oh, and I love pickles. In fact… a lot of our customers really love the nut butter and pickle combo…I honestly wasn’t calling you to pitch a business idea… but wouldn’t it be cool if we did a collab together?”
I could hear the excitement in Chris’ voice, “Yes! Let’s do it! I’m thinking a little gift box with a pickle and nut butter pairing?”
“And a limited edition, custom tiny spoon!”, I added excitedly.
The Creepy Cat, who had been standing next to me during the conversation with Chris, nudged me a little bit and slightly parted its lips, in what I can only describe as, ‘potentially being reminiscent of a smile’. In my head I heard a gentle whisper from the Cat, “Notice the good. Notice the love. Notice the moments that would not have happened.” I smiled… an actual smile… with my teeth showing. Never in a million years would this collaboration and friendship have happened if it hadn’t been for the Hagis cluster. Somehow, amidst the storm, I was starting to see that good things were happening when I trusted the flow of life… even when it didn’t make much sense.
Before I hung up the phone with Chris, I had one more question… something was nagging at my heart, and I had to ask him, “By the way… and this is an odd question… but do you have any employees that wear really oversized clothing? I’m not talking about baggy clothing… I’m talking about stupidly oversized?”
Chris laughed, “It’s funny you mention that… I hired this guy named Steve a few weeks ago, and he wears this oversized jacket that looks like a king sized duvet. I’ve asked him about it… but he says he gets really cold and needs to keep it on.” I rolled my eyes and laughed a little bit — feeling a tiny bit of pain for what I was about to tell Chris. “Ok… you’re going to have to trust me on this too,” I started, “But I think I’ve solved your pickle theft problem.”
I hung up the phone with Chris after we had talked through the Steve situation… and then set a date for a call about our Nut Butter and Pickle collab. I felt hopeful and excited… things were working out in strange ways that I hadn’t expected. “None of this would have happened if I had just sat around in anger and despair,” I remarked to the Cat, “I’m starting to see that even though the Hagis situation wasn’t good… maybe I didn’t quite understand it at first.” The Cat looked out the window, “Maybe you weren’t meant to understand it. Maybe you were just meant to trust it — even if it didn’t make sense. Maybe the whole point was to let go.”
I had a feeling we weren’t quite done yet… I had seen enough movies to know that reflecting on the past and observing the present wasn’t going to be enough. I knew that we needed to look beyond ourselves a bit more… and I was starting to feel hopeful that something really beautiful was going to be on the other side. I looked at the Cat for instructions, “So what’s next in the investigation? Are you ready to hit the road?”
The Cat turned away from the window and looked deeply into my eyes, “Roads?” The Cat paused for what I can only assume was dramatic effect… “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
To be continued…
Friends … thank you so much for being here, I truly appreciate your kindness, support and enthusiasm… and for providing me with a space to share fun… emotional… and silly stories and ideas. I hope you will see that there is a lot of truth hidden in the spaces between the words. I’m looking forward to continuing this story and sharing it with all of you… and I hope that, wherever you are right now, you have a beautiful week. You are loved, friends!
So much truth, wrapped in such an engaging story! You are a gifted writer and it appears you have learned so much from life and from what most people would call “bad” experiences. I’m learning this lesson also, that all of life is good and necessary for growth and accepting what IS, is key. I read The Power of Now, and A New Earth years ago and they have been very influential in my life. Lately Rupert Spira and Byron Katie have influenced my thinking greatly and helped enormously with mental health issues. Thanks for sharing your stories and philosophies with us, they are both very fun to read and very relevant to my thinking these days!
Eee! I love this.
The silver linings reminds me of something from week 8 of The Artist's Way I read this week:
"Gain disguised as loss" is a potent artist's tool. To acquire it, simply, brutally, ask: "How can this loss serve me? Where does it point my work?" The answers will surprise and liberate you. The trick is to metabolize pain as energy. The key to doing that is to know, to trust, and to act as if a silver lining exists if you are only willing to look at the work differently or to walk through a different door, one that you may have balked at.