Who is the Banana Thief?

Something very strange has been going on at my pad. It involves bananas.

This morning when I awoke, I went into my kitchen and noticed that one of the bananas in my basket on the counter had its peel surgically removed in one spot, and the fruit inside eaten. It looked like this:

This is the second time it's happened. The first time, I wondered if I had just purchased a defective bunch of bananas. There is no way I would've purchased defective bananas twice. Something is sneaking around my apartment in the middle of the night, eating my bananas!

Who could it be?

Here are the possible suspects:

1.

2. 

3. 

4. Other, possibly alien life form?

I have never seen a mouse in my apartment. And I can't say I've seen a space for one to crawl in. But the fact that the peel was removed in a perfect rectangle makes me wonder.

I have seen cockroaches in my apartment. In fact, exterminators came twice this summer to get rid of them. Those little buggers can crawl in from the pipes. I'm not sure about the surgical removal of the peel, though. Can cockroaches do that?

And then there's the lizard. There is actually a family of 5 living in the siding outside of my apartment. Could a lizard remove the peel from a banana like that? And would a lizard even eat a banana? Somehow, I don't think so. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, who do you think is the banana thief? 

And one more thing:

You may or may not know about the upcoming anthology, Voyagers:  Third Ghost. My story, The Ghosts of Pompeii will be part of it. There is a blog where you can learn about the authors and the story behind their stories. This week the featured author is Yvonne Ventresca, the overall winner. Click here to read her interview.  

  

IWSG and Caught in the Act

It's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group post of the month. The question is, how did you know you wanted to be a writer? What prompted you?

This is a question I answer every time I do school author visits. I ask the kids to raise their hands if they want to be an author when they grow up. And the young kids always do. Middle-schoolers, not so much. Guess what? I didn't want to be an author when I grew up. I wanted to be an astronaut or opera singer. I'm neither. This is probably a good thing because the world is much better not hearing my singing voice!

So, how did I get here? You can thank my daughter and my son for that. Here's the story:  When my son was a little baby, he didn't sleep. Neither kid did. Talk about a serious case of sleep deprivation. Four years of less than 4 hours of sleep a night! When you're that sleep-deprived, weird things go on in your head. Like poems. That's what happened. At 3:00 AM one night, a poem popped in. For the rest of the week, I spent my nights in the rocking chair with my 3-month old son, composing the entire story in my head. Later, I shared the poem with my daughter, who was three years old at the time. She said, "Mom that's really good! You should make it a book!"

My sleep-deprived mind thought that was a brilliant idea. So, here I am, 15 years later, still writing. My sixth book comes out this September:  Bubba and Squirt's Mayan Adventure.

The name of the first book?   That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN!  


Now, for the story:

If you recall, our German Shepherd, Schultz destroyed his Beaver toy by ripping the seams and taking out all the stuffing. We thought for Christmas, we'd get him a brand new Beavie. Ladies and gentlemen, it took Schultz all of two hours to destroy it. Here he is, in action:

And yes, that is Beavie's heart. Schultz ripped Beavie's heart out! I think Bootsy, the cat has been a terrible influence on him!