B.C. couple explain why they haven't removed hostage-taking cats from blender box

Like all epic stories, this one starts quite simply, beginning with the delivery of a blender in a box.

“I brought it inside,” Jessica Gerson-Neeves says. “And set it down for a quick second.”

Enter the Langford, B.C., woman's cat with an appropriately heroic name.

“Anaximander Reginald Ramiel,” Jessica’s wife Nikii Gerson-Neeves says. “But we just call him Max.”

Max jumped on top of the un-opened box in the middle of their kitchen and wouldn’t get off.

“And that was the beginning of the end!" Nikii says.

Jessica posted a picture of Max on the box on a Facebook group, calling the situation “Breaking news” of a “stand-off” with “details to follow.”

“I woke up the next morning. The post had 10,000 interactions,” Jessica says.

And the box with the blender still inside? It was now being held hostage by a second cat, Lando Calrissian.

Max was looking up from the floor below, seeming indignant after being usurped.

Their third cat, George Destroyer of Worlds, was sitting beside them, poised for action. Jessica took a picture and posted a follow-up.

“Again, people lost their minds,” Jessica says of the increasing amount of feedback from followers expressing appreciation for the post and an appetite for more updates.

So on the third day, when George Destroyer of Worlds assumed the seat of power on top of the box, Jessica shared the latest chapter in the saga.

“It really took on a life of its own,” she says.

The couple have been sharing daily posts ever since, featuring Jessica’s comic commentary.

“A compulsive need to narrate it like a demented David Attenborough!” Jessica says.

They document power plays for the top of the box ranging from sedate nudges to furious feline fisticuffs.

“It’s a bit of a struggle for dominance,” Nikii says. “And they will start throwing paws.”

There’s also been unexpected twists in the story, including an article about the feline fiasco in the Washington Post, and the Vitamix company sending empty blender boxes to try and woo the cats away from the original.

“By the next morning, Lando was on the original Vitamix box and Max was very politely in line behind him [waiting] for the original Vitamix box, while the decoy [was beside them] unoccupied,” Jessica says. “It was hilarious.”

The epic continues more than a month later.

Tens of thousands of people are following the saga of the still unopened, never-unoccupied blender box. And yes, Jessica and Nikki know they could just move the cats.

“We’re having fun. The cats are certainly having fun. So many people are having fun,” Jessica explains. “The blender will still be there when this runs its course.”

“Things are dark, so find joy where it lives,” Nikii smiles. “And right now it lives in our kitchen on top of a Vitamix box.”