Jerry was waiting for a call from Marge, his fiance, who was arriving on the Greyhound bus some time that day. The exact time was in doubt due to weather and traffic delays, so he was waiting in a small cafe about a block from the bus station.

  When the call finally came, Marge was frantic; she had taken her baggage to the curb for easy pickup, had turned away for a moment so that the sun wouldn't wash out her cellphone menu while she called Jerry; when she turned back her baggage was gone.

  Jerry picked her up, comforted her as best he could, and told her that he would see what he could do. Jerry lived several miles outside the city limits in a small farming community, and, over drinks that evening he and a few neighbors hatched a plot.

  Reasoning that the heist had all the earmarks of a well practiced routine, they set a Havaheart live animal trap and baited it with a chicken. Sure enough, the next day they had a very displeased bobcat in captivity. With the aid of heavy gloves and a dogcatcher's noose, they manged to stuff the creature into an ancient large red suitcase.

  That evening they took the suitcase, filled with a truly furious bobcat down to the Greyhound station and deposited suitcase and Marge on the curb. Marge wandered away briefly, and, sure enough, the suitcase disappeared.

  "Oh, it was great!" enthused Marge later. "A car stopped about half a block away, and there was this cat, doing laps inside on the heads of four people struggling to get out. When they finally got out, the cat wouldn't leave, and a few minutes later, the police stopped behind the car."

  Most of Marge's belongings were returned a week later by the police who, for some reason, had wide smiles on their faces, for, along with Marge's stuff, was a large, red, very tattered suitcase.
 

John Cooley, author "Dear Madman"