The Dead Cat in the Package

As told by SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen nearly 50 years ago:

The Story of the Dead Cat: a woman, for reasons unexplained, places her dead cat in a shoebox and, on the way to bury it, stops in a downtown department store. (Why?) As she is shopping, she places the box on a counter, and it disappears. A few minutes later, the store detective finds a lady shoplifter passed out in the powder room, the open shoebox on her lap.

As told today, via forwarded email...