People around the world have been following the antics of three local cats engaged in a battle of the wills with their owners over possession of a box containing a blender.
It all started innocently enough on Dec. 16, when Jessica Gerson-Neeves, 40, of Victoria received a Vitamix blender she had ordered to make smoothies for her and partner Nikii, 38.
She placed the box on the floor of her apartment kitchen, intending to take out the five-kilogram machine in short order.
Max, her four-year-old tuxedo cat, jumped on the box and made himself comfortable.
Accustomed to Max clambering onto surfaces around the apartment, Gerson-Neeves didn’t think anything of it, even taking a picture of him. She waited for him to get bored and scamper off.
But when he did eventually get off his newfound perch, one of the two other cats in the household, 13-year-old George or Lando Calrissian, would take his place.
The couple used toys, treats and other boxes to try to get the cats to relinquish their prize, to no avail.
They even crept into the kitchen in the middle of the night, hoping to catch them away from their post. Not a chance.
It has now been just over four weeks since the human-feline battle began — and the cats have so far been triumphant.
“Of course, we can just move them. We know that we, as humans, are larger and can easily just pick up the cats, but that isn’t the point,” said Gerson-Neeves, who has been providing almost daily updates on the standoff online. “I see this as an opportunity to do something fun and wholesome that everybody can enjoy, especially during these dark times.”
The cats, who have their own social-media page (be warned, the name of the page contains an expletive), have seen their Facebook followers explode from 64 to 15,000 as more and more people tune in to see what they will do next.
Some ask what all the fuss is all about — but those few are generally suspected to be dog people. The rest of the conversations are filled with pictures of other cats and descriptions of their unique habits and foibles.
“Cat people just get it,” said Gerson-Neeves, a licensed clinical social worker. “The cats are just doing their thing.”
After the couple approached Vitamix with the idea of introducing dummy boxes to lure the cats away from the one containing the blender, the company sent Gerson-Neeves three empty boxes. So far, they have set one up in the small apartment, with mixed results.
“This has turned into something bigger than us — and a lot more fun than expected,” said Gerson-Neeves. “[The cats] are having fun. We are having fun and the internet is having fun. We all need that right now.”
