It’s the kind of thing you would never expect to happen twice. One day in September, after Labor Day, my friend Jules and I went for a little R and R at South Beach. At lunchtime, Jules pulled out a perfectly constructed Italian hoagy. Having just taken a second delicious bite, out of the blue – or rather, over his left shoulder – a seagull swooped in and grabbed Jules’s sandwich. You would think this a once in a lifetime event, no? Well, actually, no. It happened again in the spring. Same place, same kind of Italian hoagy, and for all we know, the same seagull. The bird consumed everything but the tomato.

It’s easier to laugh when these precocious birds appropriate other people’s lunches, but it’s not so funny when it’s your own. These gulls, protected by the state in order to keep the beaches clean, have developed the perfect scam. The only time they eat what God intended is when the sunbathers go home for the season. And then only if they can’t find a convenient dumpster. I know a woman who feeds them whole-wheat bread because she thinks they eat too much junk food.

I think Jules is a target because he tends to eat around 11:30 (a holdover from his college days when he was too tired to go for breakfast). The birds are hungry – perhaps not having eaten since the previous day’s lunch? – so he is the first victim of the day.

But apparently people on the beach are not the only prey for these petty thieves. The morning after the second avian piracy took place, there was an item on the TV news about a seagull that hangs around a 7-11 store somewhere in New Hampshire and stages a daily raid in the chip aisle. He always takes Doritos.

Having been taught a seaside culinary lesson, Jules and I are planning another trip to the beach. This time he’s taking a tomato sandwich.