Can I Play With Madness?

Give me the sense to wonder
To wonder if I'm free
Give me a sense of wonder
To know I can be me
Give me the strength to hold my head up
Spit back in their face
Don't need no key to unlock this door
Gonna break down the walls
Break out of this bad place

Ok, here's one for the ages.  This is absolutely bizarre, insane, and improbable...all with a dash of paranoia thrown in.

I get home from work last Thursday night and pull out my keys to get into my apartment.  Two locks: knob and deadbolt.  So I first unlock the knob and feel its a little loose, almost like it was unlocked to begin with.  Odd, because I'm usually pretty good at making sure its locked when I leave.  Oh well, at least I know for a fact I locked the...deadbolt.  Unlocked as well.  WTF?

So I go in and nothing obvious is missing, so thats good.  I also saw my landlord coming into the building, so I thought perhaps he needed to get in and saw me coming so didn't bother locking it back up.  I saw him in the hall a few minutes later, and having forgotten to ask him about the unlocked door I just gave him my rent check and went back inside.  I gave Kitty some fresh water and noticed her food was getting low, so I made a mental note to feed her soon.

See, Kitty is weird.  She can have a double-sided dish overflowing with food and will eat out of one area.  When she hits bottom in that one little spot she won't eat anymore because in her world, her bowl is empty.  So she'll sit there bitching and moaning until I spread the food around in the dish (dry food) to fill in the hole.  Well, that got old quick so now I wait til she's almost empty then refill.  Feeding her requires several steps; she has one of those mondo bags of dried cat food I keep in the closet off the kitchen.  To feed her I have to open the closet, open the bag, fill her bowl, close the bag, close the closet, and replace her bowl where it was.  In other words its not some real quick process you can do absent-mindedly and then wonder later if you remembered to feed her.  You remember because it actually requires effort.

And yes, there's a point here.

Can I play with madness - the prophet started at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness - there's no vision there at all
Can I play with madness - the prophet looked and he laught at me
Can I play with madness - he said you're blind too blind to see

So Friday I go to work, and from work I leave for the 7 hour round trip to get my son.  We get back late Friday night and I sack out.  We get up Saturday and I'm making us breakfast, and while I'm in the kitchen I remember that Kitty will need food.  So I go to her bowl...and its full.  She's been fed.  So I ask my son, "hey, did you feed Kitty?"  His response was no, he hadn't.  I'm like...no, seriously..did you feed her?  He assured me he didn't.  Now, I KNOW I didn't do it.  And since Kitty has no opposable thumbs, I know she didn't do it either.  So who fed her?

Now, here's where it becomes ridiculous.  This is obviously not that big of a deal, except for the fact someone fed my cat and it was neither of the 2 people who live in the apartment.  So now I'm curious.  My mind went back to the other day, with my door being unlocked.  So I began to try and rationalize what could have happened.  My first thought was of my landlord.  Now, I know he likes cats in general and my cat in particular.  I thought that perhaps he did come in the other day, she was bitching and whining, he saw she was low on food and decided hey...I'll feed the cat.  Plausible, I suppose.  But in the back of my mind I also had another thought, and this is where the paranoia comes in.

I screamed aloud to the old man
I said don't lie don't say you don't know
I say you'll pay for your mischief
In this world or the next
Oh and then he fixed me with a freezing glance
And the hell fires raged in his eyes
He said do you want to know the truth son
- I'll tell you the truth
Your soul's gonna burn in the lake of fire

Remember a couple months back, when I had to crawl to my neighbor's and he called 911 for me?  As I was being carted off on the gurnee, he suggested I give him my keys so he could look after my cat in case I had to stay in the hospital for awhile.  Now I knew the guy a little, we hung out a little, he seemed like a nice enough guy.  Normally there's no way I'm giving anyone my keys though, but I was fairly out of it and handed them over to him.  Afterwards, like the next day, he mentioned to me "Hey, I went and checked on your cat and while I was there I looked around your apartment...hope you don't mind".  You hope I don't mind?  Fuck yes I mind.  But I didn't feel like making a big deal, nothing seemed like it was missing, so I let it pass.  But now that got me to thinking, and its something I kind of thought of before but dismissed...

Did he make a copy of my keys?  Yeah I know, paranoid...but still.  The guy has a couple cats himself, and it would be totally like him to come by for whatever reason and then happen to feed the cat while he was there.  He's also a big pot smoker so he's kind of...not completely there.  So I began thinking...what if he was over at my place nosing around or whatever, saw the landlord coming to the building as he was leaving my place, and had to get away from my door before having a chance to lock up.

So before I delved too far into that theory, I called my landlord yesterday morning when I got to work and asked if he had been in my apartment that Thursday.  I told him about the unlocked door that I was positive I had locked before I left for work, and then I mentioned the cat food.  I did preface it with "this is going to sound nuts, but...".  He seemed a little confused too, but I got the impression he believed me that I believed someone had been in my apartment.  So immediately he told me he would stop at Home Depot that evening and change the locks for me.  So he came by and did just that.  I mentioned this to my neighbor, about the cat food.  He played it off, not much reaction.  But yesterday after I got my locks changed he seemed curious to know if the landlord changed the locks on both doors, which was a fairly odd question to ask.  I told him yes and then changed the subject. 

Paranoid?  Probably.  But I know I didn't feed the damn cat, so someone must've.

Can I play with madness - the prophet started at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness - there's no vision there at all
Can I play with madness - the prophet looked and he laught at me
Can I play with madness - he said you're blind too blind to see

Oh, and in other news...got my work cell phone today!  Hooooooray.  I don't plan on abusing it (never used the phone much anyway), but its nice to have.  It also tethers me to work more, since I live about 10 minutes from the warehouse and now am expected to go back up there should I get a call requiring work in the system after office hours.  I lobbied for a laptop with network access and was immediately told to leave my boss' office and never return. 

Anyway, thanks for reading.