A shopper spotted what appeared to be a 'cat charging point' outside Morrisons when he noticed floor markings for a car-charging zone bore an 'uncanny' likeness to a cat - with the plug even acting as a tail. Author Nigel Stewart had only nipped to his local Morrisons in Kirkham, Lancashire, to get 'some bits and bobs' for his nine-year-old Cavachon Fozzie when he made the discovery.
As the dad passed the GeniePoint zone for charging electric vehicles, he realised that the floor markings for the charging bay bore a striking resemblance to a cat when turned on their side. The 63-year-old shared his discovery on Twitter, saying 'If you need your cat charging, get down to Morrisons', and the post quickly went viral amongst cat-lovers.
The photo shared by Nigel shows the symbol of a car with a charging plug rotated on its side so that it looks like a cat sitting up straight.
Dad-of-two Nigel said he had passed the charging point numerous times while driving to the shops, but only ever saw an image of a car until he decided to walk there and was given a new perspective. Nigel said: "It's uncanny - it's a great likeness.
"It was just a remarkable thing to have seen, and slipped into my head really. It just struck me that the idea of a cat needing to be charged was funny.
"Especially considering how lazy they can be - sometimes it's like they need plugging in.
"The tail shaped like a plug was quite a neat idea. I just thought that the words 'cat' and 'car' are very close to each other, so a 'cat charging point' is only a little bit different from a car charging point.
"It was literally just because I'd walked and not taken my car. What was weird was that I'd known that charging zone had been there for ages, but because I'd only ever driven past it in my car I'd only ever seen the blue symbol as the shape of a car.
"If you turn it on its side - that's what it is. It was just bizarre that the first time I'd walked past it I saw a cat. That's the first thing that came to my head."
Writer Nigel said that when he shared the trick of the eye on Twitter, he quickly realised that feline-friendly users 'saw the same thing I did', and the post has so far racked up 42,000 likes and nearly 5,000 retweets.
Nigel said: "The reaction to it came a lot from people who are clearly cat lovers, and it just went viral. There were some comments saying 'That'd never work with my cat'.
"It made me realise that people got it, and saw the same thing that I did. If you put things on social media sometimes it either falls flat or everyone gets it, and in this case they did."
One user commented: "Hahahaha that's just brilliant. Minimum cat charging time 4 hours."
Another said: "Does it have a CATalytic converter?"
A third remarked: "Woah didn't know you could get electric cats. Can finally get rid of my petrol one."
A Morrisons spokesperson said: "It's all a matter of purr-ception."
GeniePoint have been approached for comment.
