So, I’ve been a Vine reviewer for a number of years – a situation which has paid off rather handily for us, especially when it came to baby items for Wee Jamie. I have no idea how this came about, in case anyone wonders how I fell into this sweet, sweet gig, other than a lot of Amazon shoppers about ten years ago marked down my reviews of books and movies as being very helpful. Something tripped the magic algorithm, and hey, presto – I got an invite. I do have to pay tax on the estimated value of the items that I ask for, and write a review on them … but on the whole, it’s been quite handy. I’m not totally mercenary, though – I don’t routinely ask for high-value items which can be resold, which I understand that some reviewers have made out very well in doing so. I only ask for items which I can use in the household.

This is by way of saying that we have frequent Amazon deliveries. Last night we had a delivery so late that we had all gone to bed by the time that the delivery was made. This morning, my daughter retrieved the packages when she came back from her early-morning marathon run – and there were three of them, instead of the expected two.

Huh … well, maybe I had asked for the cat water fountain with the filters that purify the recycled water. My name was on the package label, so it wasn’t a mistake and meant for someone else. But I had never asked for it, or purchased one, and there was no notation of it being a gift from anyone else. It’s a mystery. Although it could be a glitch in the Vine product queue system, there is another possible explanation – that one of our cats accessed my computer, and ordered it, like Ivan the cat in this book: Ivan the very clever cat who has his own cellphone and media account.

We suspect Miso, or perhaps Persephone. Although it is not entirely out of the question that Sarah Hoyt’s Indy managed to order it for his mother and odd-eyed fluffy white brother, Prince.