Marisa Papile Urbano

News flash: Facebook users like cats. They also like feel-good stories. And precocious children. Put those all together and you get the story of two clever kids and their social-media campaign for getting a cat.

Remi Urbano, a 7-year-old, is the marketing genius behind the campaign. He wanted a cat, but his father Dan refused to get him one. Little Remi kept asking, and eventually "No" turned into "Only if you can get 1,000 Facebook Likes."

With an assist from mom Marisa, a photo of Remi and his little sister went up on Facebook with the challenge, "Dan thinks there is NO way we can do this. I say there is. Help us out."

Facebookers sure helped out. The photo has already received more than 118,000 Likes and more than 107,000 shares. If Remi really wants to push his luck, he should make dad get him 18 cats.

The happy ending to the saga comes in the form of the adoption of a tabby from a local cat shelter. Marisa wrote on Facebook, "Thank you to all the kind souls out there who rooted for our kids and taught us all a few lessons about how much kindness there really is in the world and how powerful social networks are."

Perhaps the best part of this is the new cat's name: Hairyette Pawturr. Young man, you have a bright future. I look forward to your contributions to the LOLcat genre.

Marisa Papile Urbano

(Via I Can Has Cheezburger)