My cat Gouda climbs into the laundry basket the exact second I start folding, every single time, for six years running, like he's contractually obligated to ruin efficiency. "Just move him," my husband says, like I haven't tried that literally four hundred times. I've tried folding around him. I've tried a decoy basket. I've tried folding in a different room entirely, and somehow, within ninety seconds, he's found me, sitting on the one shirt I actually needed clean for a meeting. My mother-in-law visited last month and watched this whole routine play out — me folding, him climbing in, me sighing, him purring like he'd won a trophy. "You know why he does that," she said, like this was common knowledge I'd somehow missed for six years. "Because he's a jerk?" "Because it's warm," she said. "And it smells like all of you at once. Every shirt, every towel. That's the whole family in one basket. Cats don't get that smell anywhere else in the house." I laughed it off, mostly because I didn't want to admit it was sort of sweet, and kept folding around him same as always. Last week my husband was away for work, five days, and Gouda didn't come near the laundry basket once. Sat by the door instead, most of the day, not eating much. I did an extra load just to check. He climbed in immediately, settled into a T-shirt of my husband's I hadn't washed on purpose, and stayed there the whole night. I let that one go unfolded.