As is well known, cats are the natural enemies of vampires. This has been clearly established by overwhelming empirical evidence. This is because cats recognize that vampires can take the form of bats, which are just a kind of flying mouse (German: "fledermaus" or "flitter mouse"). Also, cats are naturally aggressive towards any creature that tries to unseat them as the apex predator. Finally, cats must challenge anything that threatens the cushy situation cats have created for themselves with their human domestic servants, whom vampires consider to be merely livestock. [Ref: J. A. Lindqvist, Let the Right One In ("Låt den rätte komma in"), St. Martin's Griffin, 2004]
Vampires are repelled by the Christian cross, not due to its religious symbolism, but because vampires have a cognitive bias against right angles. Again, there is a wealth of research about this, the most widely accepted hypothesis being that vampires predate the evolution of humans by hundreds of thousands of years, having evolved long long before our distant ancestors introduced artifacts built with right angles, angles which typically do not appear in nature. Vampire brains never evolved the ability to deal with right angles, which may also explain why humans prefer Euclidian architecture, as a form of defense. [Ref: P. Watts, Blindsight, Tor, 2006]
This is why cats are attracted to boxes. Or even squares drawn on the ground. They feel safe from vampires, their natural enemies, when inside boxes because they know that the vampires will be repelled by the right angles found in boxes. The fact that cats began cohabiting with humans when we began building structures incorporating right angles cannot be a coincidence.
This startling and enlightening revelation came to me this morning during an argument with one of my Beloved Feline Overlords while I was trying to break down some old cardboard boxes for recycling - an argument my BFO, of course, won.
I refer to this hypothesis as catus amat arca archa.
I await the accolades that are sure to follow this major insight.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge his BFO and lab assistant Sophia for her significant contributions to this research effort.
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