What are objects and why would I ever use them?

 This was a big question on my mind two years ago when PHP 5 just started getting popular.  Now today I can truly say there isn't a piece of code I write that doesn't look a using objects. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  PHP added OOP, thats a fancy acronym for Object Orientated Programming.  I've struggled with this term for years and when it was first introduced to me in C++ it didn't make any sense.  What I failed to see was how my base parent class could build a foundation that my program would thrive on.