Kitty Cargo Cult

Every so often when I wander into my kitchen, I find Booger and Shy sitting on the floor staring up at the counter beside the stove. This has happened a number of times and I have pondered why they do this. It seems completely random. I never feed them from the counter and except for a very few times, they have never had anything other than their dry food and always from their bowls. Whenever I am making something interesting, they congregate and mill around my feet hoping, I think, that some morsel will fall on the floor (which I don't think it ever has). So what's the cargo cult part of this? Like the natives of Vanuata, in cat magical thinking, perhaps they believe in a causal relationship between them waiting for something to fall and me coming in and preparing something that interests them. In other words, they believe that sitting and staring at the counter will make me and food appear. Good luck you guys. It hasn't happened yet.