Uber, the rebellious car hailing smartphone app, is a big fan of bribery as a sales tactic. To break into New York City's taxi market, they offered users free rides. At South by Southwest, they rode the digerati around Austin. For a couple years now, they've doubled as an ice cream truck for a day. But now the company is offering the closest thing to being a pampered, infantilized startup employee: on-demand kitten delivery, plus cupcakes.

It's not quite Facebook's foxes or Twitter's cafeteria, but in honor of National Cat Day, residents of San Francisco, New York, and Seattle can request the "KITTENS!" option for $20 between 11am and 4pm and get a 3D real-time furxperience. Silicon Valley, solving problems it never occurred to you to have:

If the furry friends are available, you and your buds will be enjoying 15 minutes of snuggles and cupcakes made by the famous Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman and his team at Charm City Bakery.

All of the money will be donated to a local shelter. Like Uber's other offers, there's a big asterisk next to if supplies last.

Uber recently raised a $258 million round of financing led Google Ventures in order to "fight off protectionist, anti-competitive efforts." This is probably not how Google was hoping Uber would spend the money. But hey it's cheaper than dealing with striking workers. Add kitten-supplier to the list:

Here's the full email Uber sent out this morning.

Hey Nitasha!

Today is the most adorable of all days... it's National Cat Day! To celebrate we've partnered with the most popular meme site,Cheezburger to bring you kittens. Literally.TODAY, UBER IS DELIVERING KITTENS
ON-DEMAND IN SEATTLE, NEW YORK
AND SAN FRANCISCO!

Get ready to push a button and then go "Awwwww!"

HOW IT WORKS

  1. Download the Uber app for iPhone or Android
  2. Between 11am – 4pm today, request the “KITTENS!” option
  3. If the furry friends are available, you and your buds will be enjoying 15 minutes of snuggles and cupcakes made by the famous Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman and his team at Charm City Bakery.

THE BEST PART!


It's only $20 to:

  • Snuggle with Kittens for 15 minutes
  • Enjoy cupcakes from the famous Ace of Cakes (while supplies last)
  • Receive an Uberiffic Cat Pack

What's more?
ALL of that money will be donated to your city's local shelter.Want to donate more? Just let us know when you are done with your kitten snuggles.

Each Uber city is teaming up with a local animal shelter to deliver kittens to your office, favorite cat lover, or your darling!

Seattle: Seattle Humane Society
New York City: ASPCA
San Francisco: SF SPCA

ALL OF THE CUTE DETAILS

  • On National Cat Day, Tuesday, October 29th from 11am - 4pm, UberKITTENS will be available for on-demand snuggles.
  • Demand for kittens will be very high and availability very limited. It may take multiple tries to find available kittens. Please be patient! We’ll be working all day to deliver as many kitten snuggles as possible.
  • No cash required! Donations will be charged directly to your Uber account.

#ICanHasUberKittens! HAPPY NATIONAL CAT DAY!
Team Uber NYC

Update: An Uber spokesperson offered the following statement:

We are working in partnership with the ASPCA and their counterparts in each city (and they get all proceeds). The kittens can be adopted. (People have to go through the usual ASPCA checks for that, of course.) And if not, the kittens are available for anyone else to adopt tomorrow.

Our partners are:

Seattle: Seattle Humane Society<http://www.seattlehumane.org/

New York City: ASPCA<http://www.aspca.org/

San Francisco: SF SPCA<http://www.sfspca.org/

The humane society from each city has a handler traveling with the kittens and caring for them.