VIDEO: Man builds box tower as apology to cat

"Rufus Tower" isn't your average internet cat video. Popular AV cat memes mostly fall into two categories: cats cutely doing something human, like playing the piano; or cats cutely being somewhere they shouldn't be, like on top of a Roomba. "Rufus Tower," shot by Australian commercial and music-video director Billy Browne, is different. It's about a cat feeling sad, and his owner trying to cheer him up – by building him a large and complex tower of cardboard boxes to play in.

The five-minute video, starring Browne and his beleaguered orange cat Rufus, is up to a half million YouTube page views as of this writing. It kicks off with an explanation from Browne about what led to this architectural marvel. Rufus had an ear infection; the treatment was ear drops, which Rufus hated, running away from Browne when Browne came home from work. Browne admits that Rufus has been hiding from him for two weeks now (we know the feeling, although with our sulking orange tabby, it was eye drops).

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Once the ear drops had run out, Browne came up with the cardboard-tower idea as a way of making it up to Rufus – dozens of boxes, connected with packing tape. The video shows the tower as Browne builds it, and the sped-up footage includes a wary Rufus "supervising" while a somewhat mournful indie-rock tune plays. (It's from Browne's brother Ollie's band, Parallel Lions.)

So is Rufus thrilled with his new play mansion? Well…we'll let you judge for yourselves. In the meantime, we're going to hoard some boxes and see if we can't rig up a kitty condo of our own.

Got any pictures or video of your own felines "thinking inside the box"? Link 'em in the comments!

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