Ya’ll know what I’m talking about. The toys we so excitedly buy on a whim, imagination filled with visions of kitty splendor…only to be ignored entirely, not even worthy of being batted under a couch. In a twist of irony, in fact, the BEST toys get batted under the couch. I feel like these toys can never be found when you’re looking for them, but turn up in a giant stash under sometime that you only clean under once a year and then think “Oh, so THIS is where they all went!” BUT. When you look in this place at a later date to find what you now think is the honey hole of missing favorite toys, you find nary a one.

This rant is brought to you courtesy of an impulse clearance rack buy at PetSmart today. I only stopped in there to see if I could find a replacement wavy chaise longue (1. it’s really nothing like a chaise longue, it’s just a carpeted wave shape thing but the cats lie on it like I imagine I would on a chaise longue and 2. yes, I am spelling “chaise longue” correctly, it’s not “chaise lounge” as most people pronounce it – fact of the day)  but alas, it was $30. Since I’ve never spent more than $20 on one, I refused to buy one for ten dollars more today, even if Moosh is out of a seat since Taco always shoves him out of the way to take the one remaining one. See, we HAD two, only someone’s fat ass broke one.

Now there’s one, and Taco keeps puking on the sisal part (ever tried to clean puke out of woven sisal?).

There I go again, wandering away from the point. The POINT is that I ended up buying some sort of natural treats that are supposed to “deodorize” your cats’ shit. Considering that the boyfriend and I actually send each other texts to warn of impending poop smells, I would have paid a small fortune for them, but to my delight they were only SIX DOLLARS! This, to me, was worth standing in line for. It was in this line that I discovered the clearance rack. For a mere 2 something I could have a TREAT DISPENSER.

I don’t know what I thought this was, but it seemed cheap, and the cats like treats, so why not?

Yeah. No. This is what it does: you put treats in it. You wind it up. Put it on the ground. It spins a few times. Scares the cats. Spits out a few treats. Stops. Cats stare. Notice treats. Hesitantly walk toward them. Eat them. Ignore the spinny thing.

I hate the brilliance of whomever discovered these impulse lanes. I know that the grocery stores have employed such tactics for years, but only recently stores have discovered that putting in a veritable MAZE of goodies and calling it a “checkout line” is highly profitable. Forever 21, Marshalls, PetSmart…I hate you.