2014-04-30
Explanation
The Joke
Two people are chatting about a common observation: "Isn't it funny? You buy a whole cat tower, but the cat only wants the box!" One of them suggests, "They should just sell the box and forget the tower!" and the other bursts out laughing. The final panel reveals a cat sitting in a cardboard box, thinking, "Maybe if I sit here, someone will ship me out of this hell."
The Humor
The comic starts with one of the most well-worn observations in pet ownership -- that cats prefer cardboard boxes over expensive cat furniture. The two humans find this endlessly amusing and laugh uproariously. The punchline flips the perspective to the cat, who is not sitting in the box because it is adorably quirky, but because the cat is so miserable living with these tedious people that it is hoping to be mailed somewhere else. The humor comes from the contrast between the humans' lighthearted, cliched banter and the cat's dark, desperate desire to escape. It also satirizes people who endlessly repeat the same unoriginal observations about pet behavior as if they are hilarious insights.