My cat is a jerk. I spent the entire morning risking electrocution and vacuum tube implosions to disassemble an old CRT monitor. All so that the noble Lord Ragnarok could have a nifty looking bed to lounge about in.

He loves boxes of all kinds, so I figured he’d enjoy this. He’s kind of, um, big boned, so I needed a big monitor — and the abandoned 21″ inch CRT monitor I found while cleaning out our closets was perfect. Taking it apart was difficult only because I am sometimes an idiot. Also it turns out there are lots of hidden screws on monitors. When in doubt, however, I found that just kind of forcing things apart, with liberal application of wire cutters, pretty much got the job done.

Once it was finished, complete with a stylish pink leopard print pillow, I put it upright and proudly waited for Ragnarok to discover his awesome new bed.

Instead, he excitedly jumped into the discarded metal box interior. And lounged there. For fifteen minutes. While purring happily. What an asshole.

Attempts to force him into the monitor were resisted strenuously. But I deserved to have pictures of my cat pretending to enjoy his new luxury geek bed, dammit, so it was time to pull out the big guns. After heavily dosing the pillow with crushed up catnip and scattering his favorite treats in the back of the monitor, Ragnarok finally agreed to hop inside.

Hopefully, he’ll learn to appreciate the new bed. If not, I’m just going to have to turn it into a cage and get myself a pet mouse.

Update: A solution has been found. To make Ragnar use the monitor bed, simply give him his favorite kind of bed — a plastic tub — and then load the whole thing into the monitor, like it’s some kind of demented kitty oven. Apparently this is much more comfortable than curling up on a nice pillow.

-Susan