The Creepy Cat Detective Agency

The Case of the Missing Nut Butter: Part One.

P.S. As always, this post is far too long for e-mail format, so click ‘read more’ at the bottom to see the whole thing!

Dear Kula Diaries,

Today is part one of a short series. I’ve discovered a new genre of writing that I’m calling friction: realistic fiction. Many parts of this story are based on fact… many parts of the story are based on imagination. Together, they are woven into a story that is partially, somewhat true and partially somewhat imagination. I’ve discovered a unique joy in writing these words, because they have taken moments in life that have been very challenging for me… and turned them into something that feels like it can be used for a greater purpose.

I’ve talked a lot in The Kula Diaries about going with the flow of life… and how trusting the path, even when it might not be what we want it to look like, can yield more magical things than we could have imagined on our own. In my own resistance to the present moment (which happens a lot), I have discovered that creating a story around my experiences is a way in which I can make sense of things that I cannot make sense of. It is a way that I can find a flake of gold in something that appears dull and and decidedly un-golden.

I’m very excited to share the rest of this story with you in the upcoming weeks, and excited to introduce you to The Creepy Cat Detective Agency… which is the beautiful thing that has bloomed from something that, at the time when it happened, did not feel beautiful.

I am sending you all so much love today — and a hope that you too can find the shimmer in all of life’s moments… even if they don’t make sense right away.

Ok… time for the story….

The Case of the Missing Nut Butter: Part One

I shook my head in dismay as I dipped my tiny spoon into a fresh jar of sprinkle-laden nut butter, “I don’t know what to do. It’s like half of our nut butter production for the last few months just disappeared.” I tasted the familiar creaminess and sugary decadence as the nut butter melted from the spoon onto my tongue. The recipe was perfect — a decadent combination of vanilla bean maple-infused peanut butter… with sprinkles and chocolate chips. We had been producing at capacity for months now… and I simply could not explain the vanishing nut butter supply. I scrolled through our monthly sales numbers, “It just doesn’t make sense,” I mused to myself as I ate another miniature bite.

The Tiny Spoon Nut Butter Company had been my dream since I was a little, nut-butter obsessed girl. I had always dreamed of a day when I could own a nut-butter company… but I usually talked myself out of it. After graduating from college with a degree in Latin, I had been unable to find a job… since the demand for people who have a working knowledge of an unspoken language is pretty limited. I had opted for a career as a professional hot dog cart girl… since I was nearly positive that I’d never amount to anything. In the early days at the golf course, I’d tell people about my dream of owning a nut butter company… and they’d meet me with predictable resistance, “Somebody else is already doing it,” or, “Do you think you can compete with Jiff or Skippy? Don’t kid yourself. The market is saturated,” or, “You really should just stick with hot dogs.” At home, I’d spend hours trying to perfect my recipe. People loved it, but they were quick to tell me how difficult it was to start a business. “All businesses always fail,” somebody once told me.

Reluctantly, I’d turn back to my hot dog cart and stir the sauerkraut. My hair, subjected to 12 hour days of kraut fumes, had started to smell pungent and my husband had recently purchased an industrial grade shampoo for me to try. Well, it wasn’t actually shampoo… it was a soap designed for washing cars… but I was hopeful that it would help with the sauerkraut smell. It had been on this day… the day after I tried washing my hair with car wash soap… that the incident had happened. The incident involved an aggressive swan, an entire basin of scalding sauerkraut, an obnoxiously drunk golfer, and my collared polo shirt. The owner of the golf course had recently told me that she thought I’d make more tips if I wore something slightly more revealing on the course. I had taken her advice to heart, and I had unbuttoned the first of two buttons on my collared polo. Apparently, this was simply too tempting for an obliterated golfer to resist… and the incident had transpired as a result of that one undone button.

I left the golf course that day, and never returned. I knew in my heart that I had been living very small, and I was determined to follow my dreams. I bought a food processor and I started working in earnest on my nut butter recipe. I started small… giving jars of my sample nut butter to friends and family… but, eventually, people started asking if they could buy it. Soon, a local grocery store agreed to stock it… and I was forced to move into a commercial kitchen for production. Now, nearly two years later, Tiny Spoon Nut Butter Co. was one of the top selling brands at most major grocery store chains… and we had just been named Nut Butter of the Year in the prestigious Butter Bank Awards. And yet, even with our success, the numbers that I was looking at just didn’t add up. I knew that something was wrong, and I thought I had an idea of who might be involved.

Steve was an employee who started working for Tiny Spoon when I first started — he was a little stand-offish, but he worked hard and he loved making nut butter. I put him in charge of the blender room, and once we moved into our new production facility, he was responsible for Quality Control of every single jar of nut butter that went out into the world. Once, he made an off-handed remark to me that I never forgot, “Most companies go out of business because of internal employee theft”, he had informed me. At the time, I had shrugged and nodded, but I didn’t see how that applied to me. Now, I was beginning to see that maybe it did.

Steve’s behavior over the past few months had become increasingly erratic. He started wearing massively baggy pants to work, which were distracting to the other employees. These were not just normal baggy pants… these were the type of pants that were worn by kids in the 90s… the type of kids who refused to acknowledge that I existed. I took the entire office out to lunch one day, and Steve showed up wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses. After ordering a small plate of saltless French Fries and dry toast, he refused to speak to anybody else over the course of the meal. I still shuddered when I thought about those French Fries. The entire office was feeling the pain of his awkwardness, and some days… it felt like a dark cloud of nut butter dismay was hanging over our usually cheery team. Since Tiny Spoon was still relatively new, we didn’t have a permanent HR department, so I reached out to a friend to see if they could give me a recommendation for a 3rd party HR Investigator that could help me conduct employee interviews. I was determined to get to the bottom of my nut butter dilemma. “Oh, I’ve got the perfect guy for you,” one of my friends told me, “He’s a lawyer… I’ve known him for years… and he works as an HR director.”

I managed to sneak this photo of Steve’s unbelievably baggy pants.

“Perfect”, I replied, feeling slightly relieved, “What’s his name, and how do I call him?”

A few minutes later, I found myself punching numbers into my phone and placing my first call to a man named Hagis Scuthins. I had rolled my eyes a little bit at the name, Is this for real? Who names their kid Hagis? My friend had assured me that he was reputable. “He’s a huge advocate for women, “ she said. I was pretty desperate, so I made the call.

“Hagis Scuthins, JD here,” a gruff voice answered.

“Hi, my name is Anastasia… I’m the owner of Tiny Spoon Nut Butter Company. And I think I might need your help.”

Hagis started rattling off his credentials… including his law degree and his certification as a licensed advocate by an organization that I had never heard of called Advocates for Advocates Advocacy Society of America. “I’ll text you my advocacy license,” he said as I described my vanishing nut butter situation and my suspicion of my employee Steve. He rapidly fired back with a torrent of words that, had I written them down on paper, probably would have sounded really good. A few minutes later, a ding on my phone alerted me to a new text… it was Hagis’ advocate certificate.

As I glanced over the certificate, my eyebrows alternated shrugs in suspicion as I listened to Hagis’ rambling, “Awwww yah, we can’t have this sort of thing. Men taking advantage of women’s companies. I’m a huge advocate for women. You should be driving around in a Lambo. I’m so impressed with your brand. Yah, I see this stuff all the time. Employee theft. Yah. I’ll help you out. I’m gonna investigate this and give you an investigation packet at the end. I can do interviews and get to the bottom of this. I’m such a huge advocate for women. You don’t deserve this.” He finished his elegy with a final, exaggerated phrase for, I can only assume, dramatic flair. “Lovvvveeeeeeee the nut buttaaaaaah,” he said in an awkwardly rough voice.

I felt sympathetically exhausted listening to his attempt to appease me, “Ok, so… I should just get my employees scheduled for an interview with you?”

“Yep… and uhhh… I’m going to need you to pay me in advance. You know…errr… because a tech guy is going to have to set up these recorded interviews.”

I nodded on the other end of the phone, “Of course, I’ll pay you! I wasn’t planning for you to do this pro bono. Just let me know what you need from me.”

Hagis and I decided to meet the next day for our Zoom call. He said he wanted to interview me as well, just to cover his bases. I nervously approached all of the other employees at Tiny Spoon at informed them that they would have to be interviewed due to the recent and ongoing Nut Butter theft. Steve, noticeably troubled by the news, tugged nervously at his ridiculously baggy pants.

The next day, I signed into the Zoom call and found myself face to face with Mr. Hagis Scuthins for the very first time. I could tell that he had a fingerprint smudge on his computer camera, because there was a slight halo effect around his face… and Mr. Scuthins did not appear to be the type of person who would ever be in near vicinity to an actual halo. He was a rotund man with a grizzled looking beard. Based on his description — a former military man with a law degree who served as an HR director and performed significant advocacy work — I was expecting a clean-cut, tidy gentleman with a chiseled jaw, dressed in a dapper suit. I could have not been more wrong. Mr. Scuthins looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks… and was wearing a black t-shirt that looked like it had been pulled out of the little basket next to his dryer where he emptied the lint after each load. So far, I was not impressed.

He started by asking me a few questions about the possible theft at Tiny Spoon Nut Butter, but quickly dove into a deep tangent about what an advocate he was for women… and, really, anybody who liked nut butter. “What ya’ll are doin’ here is unbelievable. Really unbelievable. I bet you’re so successful. Wow, just incredible.”

I was flattered, but uninterested in his praise. I just wanted to save Tiny Spoon Nut Butter. At some point in the conversation, Mr. Scuthins’ roommate, Spence, (as he was introduced to me) appeared on the camera, wanting to interject about how the thought the investigation should be handled. I was shocked and affronted that somebody else had been listening to a supposedly private conversation… and I also was completely unable to hear him. Spence looked like he had the same showering habits as Mr. Scuthins — his shoulder length hair looked greasy and uncombed. I could see his mouth talking, but the microphone on Mr. Scuthins’ computer was so horrible that I was unable to hear anything except a dull murmur. I started to wonder if his computer was actually a piece of old cardboard that had been retrofitted to run Zoom calls.

Probably Hagis’ computer.

My hypothetical musings were interrupted by a distracting odor that suddenly and offensively hit my olfactory senses. I tried to stifle a cough as I quickly fumbled for the mute button on Zoom. Hagis didn’t look surprised, “Let me guess… you smell something funny? Don’t worry, it happens all the time when I talk on Zoom. It’s a sympathy odor from my apartment, which… I’ll admit… isn’t very clean. Don’t worry, it’ll pass.” I gagged silently and took a sip of water as my eyes watered from the pungent smell…. and, amazingly, as Hagis had predicted — it vanished. It was gone as quickly as it had arrived. Sympathy odor? Through Zoom? I had once thought that the Czech man on a rollercoaster who had Zoom bombed my Dance Experiment call was the wildest virtual experience I had ever had. Now I really had experienced everything.

At the end of the call, Mr. Scuthins assured me that he was a huge advocate for women and that he would get to the bottom of my nut butter theft. After speaking with him in person… I was starting to have my doubts… but my friend assured me, ‘Don’t dwell on the sympathy odor… he’s just a little rough around the edges.” I tried to suppress the instincts that I could feel within my bones… the little voices that were screaming, “RUUUNNNNN AWAAAAAY.” But, I didn’t.

A few days later, the interviews began… and one by one, my employees were interviewed by Mr. Scuthins. A few of them confided in me after their interviews were complete. “It went really well,” one of my female employees reported, “He’s a real advocate for young women.” Another employee had a similar report, “He’s such a huge advocate for dog owners. I felt really seen.” Lucy, an employee who had worked for me for almost a year poked her head in my office and said, “I think it went well. He’s a huge advocate for cat owners! Also… there’s this weird smell in my office… can you take a look at it?”. Steve was the only person that I hadn’t heard from… I was about to go check on him, when Mr. Scuthins texted me:

I rolled my eyes. A retainer? He had never mentioned anything about this to begin with. My instinct told me that it felt odd… but I trusted my friend who had recommended him to me. A few months ago, I had paid a $5,000 retainer to a Law Firm who was doing Intellectual Property Protection work for me… so I was familiar with the concept. I knew that Hagis was a lawyer, so I (again) pushed aside my gut instinct… and sent him some more money.

It was the end of the day, and although it made me really uncomfortable… I knew I had to talk to Steve. I walked towards his office — he made a point of keeping the door closed, even though I had asked him numerous times to keep the door open. It always felt so creepy to have to knock on the door… sometimes I wondered what he was doing in there. As I knocked, I heard a loud crashing noise and a gasp of pain — I burst through the door, concerned about what had happened, and I let out an equally horrific gasp of horror. Steve was lying on the floor of his office… he had somehow gotten his baggy pants tangled on the bottom of his rolling office chair. He had apparently attempted to stand up, but the pants had entwined themselves so deeply into the plastic wheel that they had ripped the oversized pants off his body. Steve was lying in a pretzel-like heap on the ground… a confusing mess of pants fabric… and, to my utter shock… peanut butter jars. I quickly tried to comprehend what I was observing: Steve, lying pants-less on the ground, was not entirely pants-less. He was wearing a pair of black, fitted leggings that appeared to have a complicated tier-ed pocket system completely encircling each leg. In each, small pocket… was a jar of Tiny Spoon Nut Butter.

“You’re the nut butter thief!”, I shrieked out loud, “This is why our production numbers have been so low… it all makes sense now! You’ve been stealing them in those awful pants!”

Steve rolled around on the floor in pain… apparently, tripping and falling and landing on 78 jars of nut butter is not the most pleasant thing to experience. I helped him up, and he hung his head in a look of despair and shame, “I’m sorry, “ he said, “I just really wanted to buy some stuff and I needed extra money… I wasn’t planning to take so much… but I started taking the nut butter and selling it…. a few of my buyers really liked it, so I had to keep taking more. It’s just really good nut butter.”

I shook my head, “I’m so disappointed, Steve. You’ve been with me since the very beginning. I would have done anything to help you out… it didn’t need to come to this. I think you know this already, but I’m going to have to let you go. I really hope that you can find what you are looking for in life. Oh, and for future reference, French Fries are infinitely better with salt.”

Steve looked at me, “I’ve heard of salt. I don’t think it’s very good,” and he walked out.

Cleaning up the aftermath….

Feeling a bit numb and overwhelmed, I headed back to my office. I quickly typed an official termination letter and put it in the mail to Steve’s address, and sent him the same message in an e-mail. I wanted to make sure that I was handling this investigation with integrity. I knew I could have reported the incident as a significant theft, but my heart hurt with the thought of having to go to court and press charges against Steve — a human who was obviously already having a difficult time. I sat alone in my office and cried silently to myself. The past few months had been… horrible. Nobody had any idea how difficult it had been. It was already challenging to run a business… but to show up every single day and to put on a happy face, even when I knew that there was something horribly wrong… well, that had been a challenge. I knew I had to let the entire incident go… focus my attention and my heart on the team of folks who were devoted to me and Tiny Spoon Nut Butter… and move on.

I picked up the phone and called Mr. Scuthins, “Well, I have some…er…. interesting news,” I said, “Steve’s pants fell off and I discovered where he was hiding the peanut butter.” As the words left my mouth, I realized how awkward they might have sounded out of context. Quickly, I described the incident which had left Steve pantsless, on the ground, with his peanut butter theft leggings exposed. Hagis seemed interested, “Do you think those leggings come in all sizes?”

I rolled my eyes. I was ready to be done with this doof. “So, it sounds like we’re done with the investigation now. I gave Steve his termination notice already… so if you could transfer my reimbursement payment from the retainer and mail me that investigation packet, that would be great.” Hagis made a strange sound on the other end of the phone, but it almost sounded affirmative, “Urghshp… I’ll do that first thing next week.” I hung up the phone and resolved to spend the entire weekend eating cookies, playing with my cats, and doing as much of nothing as possible.

On Monday, I received a kind text message from Hagis…

I’d like to say that this story had a happy ending. I’d love to say that I finished my Nut Butter Investigation and that Hagis sent me my reimbursement check… and that I received my investigation packet in the mail. But, that, my friends… would not be worth writing a story about. I was about to enter… the twilight zone.

The next morning, I received two texts from Hagis… the first of which was sent at 3:11 AM:

Instantly, my brain started to hurt. I sniffed the air… the sympathy odor was back, and more rancid than ever. I shook my head… was this even real? Was I living in a dream world where the HR Investigator that I had hired to investigate my own investigation was attempting to scam me? I had a horrible feeling that I already knew the answer to that question. I sat at my table, and I felt stunned, manipulated and stupid. By all accounts, I was a successful business owner… how did I fall for this so easily? I didn’t even know what to say, so I didn’t say anything right away. Hagis continued to text me… each text, more desperate than the next. I had a feeling that my ‘investigation packet’ and monetary reimbursement would never arrive.

Later in the day, I wrote Hagis a polite message and told him that I’d be unable to loan him $1,000. I reminded him that I had treated him with kindness, honesty and integrity … and that I hope he’d extend the same to me. He assured me he would… but, to my dismay, the packet and money never arrived. Hagis mysteriously lost the tracking number on the packet… and then continually told me he would transfer me the reimbursement money… but he always had an excuse why he couldn’t do it. One day he was traveling… another day, he was too busy… and then, he stopped responding to me. I felt shocked and betrayed. This was somebody who had been recommended to me as someone that I could trust. I had turned to him in a moment where I had felt very lost… and now, I felt even more lost. When I had discovered the nut butter leggings and Steve’s theft …while I had been disappointed, I had at least felt hopeful. I had solved the problem, and I felt proud that I had handled it in a professional manner. Now, I didn’t know what to think anymore.

I sat in the Tiny Spoon Nut Butter office that night by myself. The smell of nut butter was heavy in the air, and I looked around at everything that I had built… all of this, because of a tiny little dream, I thought to myself. I saw thousands and thousands of jars of nut butters… and I imagined all of the people in their homes with Tiny Spoon Nut Butter on their shelves. I had put everything into making this company something that could be a place where people belonged… and now, even I wasn’t sure if I did. Many years prior, when I was in the process of starting Tiny Spoon Nut Butter, I had felt the same way. Bills had been piling up, and I had negative money in my bank account… and nobody even knew that my nut butter existed. My husband was working 12-14 hour days, and I had left my job with a promise to myself that I could make this work. And yet, I had nothing to show for it, except a bunch of jars of nut butter and a brand that nobody had ever heard of. That night, I had gone into the closet in my guest room and I had laid on the ground and sobbed. I remembered feeling like I was looking up a mountain that might be too hard for me to climb. I felt the same way now. I looked around at everything that I had built… and the idea of letting it go gave me a sense of relief. I began to wonder if everything that everybody had ever told me was true — I began to wonder if I really was cut out to be a business owner.

I wasn’t sure what to do next… and had no idea where to begin or how to get my money back. Should I call the police? Report Hagis to the Advocacy Society? Exhausted, I decided to leave for the night. I quickly organized some papers on my desk before I left the office, and as I opened my desk drawer, a small card tumbled out from underneath the drawer and onto the floor. “What’s this?,” I mused out loud to myself.

I picked up the card, and flipped it over. “Creepy Cat Detective Agency’, I read out loud, ‘An intuitive detective agency for the most curious cases of moral turpitude.’ I bent down and looked under my desk drawer for an explanation, “Where in the hell did this card come from?,” I wondered. I had never seen it before in my life… and I certainly had never heard of a Creepy Cat Detective Agency. It sounded fake… but, then again, so did the situation that I currently found myself in. I was in one of those rare moments in life where you are open to doing something that feels ludicrous and drastic because you feel like you truly have nothing to lose. There was a number on the card, and I was surprised to find myself picking up my phone and dialing the number without thinking.

The phone picked up in one ring, “Anastasia?”, the voice on the other end of the line said, “I’ve been waiting for your call. Let’s get started.”

To be continued….

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Friends, thank you so much for reading this story and for being here. I’ve really been enjoying writing these stories so much. Many, many years ago… I got in trouble in 2nd grade for writing stories when I was supposed to be doing the teacher-assigned worksheets. The teacher called my mom and said, “Anastasia isn’t doing the worksheets. She’s writing stories instead.” My mom tells me that she told the teacher to keep let me writing stories. I’m pretty grateful that my imagination has always been an important part of my life — and I feel like it’s been more active recently… and I have loved seeing the places it is taking me. I hope you enjoy them too!

I am wishing all of you a beautiful week, wherever you are. Thank you again for being here - it means a lot.

Love,

Anastasia