Who Took It?

This morning as Cliff was getting ready to leave for work we had a conversation that went something like this:

"Hey Beck, have you seen my shoe?"

Me: "Nope. But I bet Lochlan threw it in the bushes again."

(Both of us went outside looking through the bushes and all around the house and garage with a flashlight for about 10 minutes).

Me: "Why don't you wear those different shoes?"

Cliff: "A cat peed on those."

Me: "Maybe we should not keep our shoes out on the porch anymore."

Cliff: "No. I don't think it's an issue."

Me: "Remember when Mason's basketball shoe went missing? I bet it was some animal."

Cliff: "Oh yeah."

Cliff: "I bet a dog took it."

Me: "I haven't seen any dogs running loose around here. I bet it was a racoon."

Cliff: "Are you kidding me? What kind of racoon has time to go around stealing people's shoes? They are focused on survival. Now DOGS have plenty of time for that kind of thing. They just lay around waiting for their owners to feed them and then they get bored so they go looking for some entertainment like stealing my shoe off of the porch. Their brains are so small, they can't think of anything more intelligent to do."

Me: "But...."

Cliff: "If I didn't have a job, I'd go around stealing other people's shoes off of their porches.... Yeah it was a dog."