If you want to stop thinking about whatever you should be thinking about, you’ll love these two cat-related items. They completely derailed my train of thought, and I’m sure they’ll do the same for you.

First up, do you need a pair of Cat Butt Coasters? If you do, let me ask you something else: why?

Note that the creator will be happy to match them to your cat if you send her a photo. That’s good. It means you won’t notice when they accumulate cat hair–as all knitted and woven items do. Unless, of course, you have a multi-cat household. Which you probably do, if you’re seriously interested in these items.

The shape and size are going to make them absolutely irresistible to cats. Don’t leave the coasters sitting on the table when you’re not using them, as they will undoubtedly be carried off, used as pucks in a game of feline hockey, and finally dumped under the couch.

Given our cats’ predilection for sniffing each others’ rear ends, I have to imagine they would spend a lot of time just sniffing the coasters. Which means they’d be spending even more time on the table than they already do. If they’re hanging out on the table, they’re probably also going to wind up sitting on the coasters. Ready for some hot cat-butt-on-faux-cat-butt action?

Between their use as hockey pucks and cat seats, it’s a good thing the coasters are machine washable. The down side, of course, is the odd looks you’ll get on public transportation when you turn to your spouse and ask “Did you remember to put the cat butts in the washing machine?” Or maybe it’s not a down side. Maybe you could use it to draw the people around you out of their smartphones and start a conversation. With a start like that, you could probably keep them entertained all the way from Concord to Glen Park, even with the inevitable BART delay in the Transbay Tube.

Then there’s this peculiar set of objects currently available on eBay.

These cats don’t look anything like any of the water-loving breeds I’m familiar with. Why would they go anywhere near a beach, let alone into the ocean?

Is this a clothing-optional surf school? If not, shouldn’t Junior be wearing trunks, a wet suit, or something? Come to think of it, wouldn’t safety concerns mandate that he wear something to give his pom-poms a modicum of protection? The figure isn’t very strongly gendered. Maybe Junior is a girl–or has already been neutered–and doesn’t have pom-poms to protect. But even in that case, wouldn’t some protection be desirable? I’ve never surfed–can somebody with some experience in the area weigh in?

Did Mom have surgery that involved shaving her stomach? Why else would she need to wear a bikini top to cover her nipples? And if she does need to cover them, shouldn’t she be wearing a top that covers all of them? Last I checked, cats have anywhere from four to ten nipples; if exposing one pair is obscene, shouldn’t it apply equally to the rest of them?

Then there’s the color scheme. Blue for Dad, Pink for Mom. Hmm. Outside of the clothing, the adult figures aren’t any more strongly gendered than the kid. Could it be that they’re a same-sex couple, wearing these suits as a statement about the irrelevance of traditional sexual roles to the modern family? That seems awfully subtle for a set of collectible ceramic figures, but it does explain so much that’s confusing about this little family group.