Source Scott White of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador [Canada], said he went to sleep Sunday morning around midnight after setting some onions in the slow cooker to make jam. A few hours later, around 4:30 a.m., White said his cat, Joey, did something strange. “Usually, Joey doesn’t bother us when we sleep, but I could sense him pacing around the bed and I woke up with a paw on my face,” White told HuffPost.
Sensing something was wrong, White got up and saw the kitchen filling up with smoke from the slow cooker. “There was a lot of haze in the kitchen, but not enough to alert the fire alarm about 20 feet away,” White said. In the aftermath of Joey’s alertness, White and his fiancée have been giving Joey extra attention and treats from a “hero basket” donated to them as word about the cat spread around town.
But Joey’s heroism may have left White’s other pet, a 10-month-old puppy, in the metaphorical doghouse. “The dog was always in the window growling at people, so we thought he’d be a good watchdog,” White said. Instead, the pooch slept through the entire incident. “I guess we found out the real hero is the cat,” White told the CBC.
As I read further and further into this story I started rubbing my hands like Birdman because there is so much juicyness to analyze here.
Let’s start from the top. Who on earth slow cooks onions to make jam? Jam is sweet. Jam is colorful. Jam is outstanding when spread on toast at breakfast. Onions are none of those things. I know Canada is into a lot of stuff that the rest of the world doesn’t co-sign (celebrating Thanksgiving in October, eating poutine, clubbing baby seals, the band Nickelback) but this is some next level diabolical kitchen debauchery right here. I’m gonna step out on a limb and say that if you’re a person who thinks making jam out of onions is a good idea you might just deserve to have your house almost burn down for having such poor taste… Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.
Next we need to talk about this cat, Joey, who despite having a lifetime track record of never doing anything to help anyone other than himself (also known as “being a cat”) supposedly decided that he would get up at 4:30AM and warm his owners that the jam onions had passed through the caramelized stage and were well on their way to charred. I don’t buy Joey’s story. Not for one second. There is no way this rat slayer took the time to drag himself out of his litter box in the wee hours of the morning to save the lives of his owners. That’s just not a cat activity.
I’ll tell you what this story is. It’s a major case of stolen valor. Joey didn’t rescue shit. The real hero here is that cute little 10 month old puppy that the ungrateful jam cook Scott White (who for all we know may also be a meth cook too) disparaged so horribly. We are all aware that the most plausible story is that the puppy, having a keen sense of smell and leadership abilities that exceed his young age, awoke, noticed the impending doom, and warned his treasonous housemate Joey the cat who then sprinted ahead of the puppy to warn the owners about the fire. Puppies are all legs when they try to run so as the young dog was attempting to collect his paws underneath himself and get moving the cat just took off, left him in the dust, warned the family, and stole all of the glory while leaving the pup to face unwarranted ridicule. Well, the rest of the internet might be fooled, but we here at WildCasa know what really happened. May this post forever stand as a record of the real truth of the story of the Canadian Kitchen Jam Fire of 2020.