Yesterday I bought a pair of cat cubes at Target. I was convinced to buy them after reading tons of customer reviews online saying how great they are, how cats just LOVE to sleep and play in them, how even weeks later cats are going crazy over them, how for only $10 these cubes are truly the best purchase you'll ever make for your favorite feline.

Now, I am not new to cat caregiving. I know how cats turn their noses up at any and all items that come from a store. Why, a cat wonders, would I play with a fuzzy, befeathered, jingling mouse on a string when I could stalk the leaf that came in on the bottom of your shoe? Or swat a stray wine cork under the refrigerator? Why would I chew on a catnip-stuffed toy when I could serve a true purpose by pouncing on dustbunnies?

And you would think we'd appreciate how low maintenance our cats are in this (only) regard. You'd think we'd take advantage of the fact that a crumpled wad of crinkly tissue paper is perhaps the most raucous and rollicking good time a cat will ever encounter. And yet, we cannot help ourselves. We must bring home toys for kitty. Lots and lots of toys. Toys for her Christmas stocking and toys for her birthday and toys for her Easter basket (shut up) and toys just because. Just because we're brainwashed.

I do it. I buy my cats toys which they play with for approximately 5 seconds until Rob opens a magazine on the table and suddenly the feline priority becomes sitting on Newsweek, placing one's ass right smack in the middle of the page. WHAT COULD BE MORE FUN?! Once I made the ultimate mistake and bought a cat bed. Mostly because it matched my living room décor but also because it looked soft and cozy. If I were a cat I would sit there, I thought. I was wrong. Apparently, if I were a cat, I would take a piss there. Because that's what one of them did. Peed in the fucking cat bed.

Still, I bought these cubes. Because dozens of cat-owning Target shoppers cannot be wrong. Because what about knee-high bright blue nylon cubes doesn't match my living room décor? And because clearly I am a sucker. You see it coming, don't you?

So yeah. I presented the cubes to the cats, using my high-pitched super-excited voice. "Oh boy, kitties, look what Mommy has! CUBES!! Cubes for the kitties! Aren't you so excited? Don't they look SOOO fun?!" They sniffed the cubes. Simon sat in one for awhile. And then we heard their collective bored sigh.

Later, I found Maylee (and later still, Bridget) contently curled up right next to the cubes...in a cardboard shoebox.