It's not copying, it's meowmix culture.
I tip my hat to you, neb.
(It was clear from the first sentence and prior knowledge of you that this would be a shaggy dog story of sorts, but I couldn't figure out what the punchline would be except that it would clearly involve the word "purr".)
Neb's writing can be slippery, but once and a while you get a purchase.
This one must suck because I understood it.
The trick to these is that the word or words at the basis of the pun have to be avoided during the run up. The classic is "The crowd cried 'abominable'!" where the run up carefully talks of the toreador and his antagonist and the anarchist and his device; never of bulls and bombs. So essear (3) knew that the pun here had to involve "purr" since such pains had been taken to talk round it.
So essear (3) knew that the pun here had to involve "purr" since such pains had been taken to talk round it.
Well, yeah.