Midnight Jack

As Marilyn and were watching TV, an ear splitting cat screech cut the night air. It didn't come from outside. It came from our kitchen. I jumped up and entered the kitchen just in time to see a long haired gray cat making tracks through the laundry room to the guest bathroom and out the cat door. The scream came from Scruffy who was visibly agitated. Apparently she went in for a late night snack and found a stranger munching on her food. Having never seen a strange cat in the house, she let loose. We thought we had seen the last of him. We were wrong. As we lay in bed the next night, another cat squall resounded through the house. The next morning we noticed tufts of cat fur on the floor; another late night cat confrontation between defenders of the homeland and the marauder. The next night as Marilyn entered the kitchen close to midnight she caught a glimpse of the gray feline as he hightailed it to the cat door. Since he seemed to show up close to midnight we dubbed him Midnight Jack. We had several encounters with Midnight Jack but what we didn't know was how many times he had invited himself to dinner undetected. It did seem that the cats were eating more food than they usually eat. Apparently. the warm glow of inside lights through the clear cat door and delightful buffet of cat delicacies inside were worth the occasional hostile cat contact inside and risk of unpredictable humans. Midnight Jack couldn't stay away.
We decided to close the bathroom door around nine every night to block Midnight Jack from the rest of the house. Our cats usually don't go out at night anyway. There was no sign of Midnight Jack for several days. Two days ago in the late afternoon Marilyn entered the kitchen and caught a glimpse of Midnight Jack scurrying for the door. Now we call him Dinnertime Jack.