The cat in the basket

When I adopted Acadia just over a year ago, a friend advised me that every cat, no matter how many other perfectly good places to sleep it might have, is under-served unless it has a basket also. “Pishposh!” I said, or meant to. And since, as time passed, Acadia seemed perfectly at ease in her basket-less state, I gave the matter no further thought.

Then last week my friend did for Acadia what Acadia’s provider-animal is now ashamed to admit he had been unwilling to do. The basket arrived.

Which leaves me with one simple question: What the hell is it with cats and baskets, anyway?

Do they have baskets in the wild? I don’t think so. And if not, what naturally occurring thing is it that looks like a basket or acts like a basket that they respond to so instinctively? They don’t live in nests, do they? They don’t burrow. What is it?

(Okay, that’s more than one simple question. Call my lawyer.)

She’s in the basket right now, even as I write this. She’s always in the basket. Was there ever a time before the basket? I look at her there and she looks back at me as if to say, “A whole year of my life. Wasted. Because of you.”

I’ll try to do better, so help me God.