Waking Up Kitty
The lovely SockHobbit (who might just be in need of promotion to Sock; she is willing to let me play Halo 2 tonight and “Won’t even ask you to go to bed at ten…you can stay up as long as you want.” What can I say? I married well.) and I woke up this morning to the wondrous melodies of our orange cat scratching the hell out of the walls of her crapfort. We used to have the functional, but – let’s face it – overly generic ‘litter box,’ but we had to forgo that option because our cats tend to fling their dehydrated clumps ‘o’ feces over the walls and onto our bathroom floor. They also are able to excavate a significant pile of perfectly good cat litter in the process, essentially building up a new place to crap (on the floor).
In order to curb this situation, we invested in a large blue plastic box. It’s kind of cool, actually. It opens in half for easy crap removal and even comes with a nifty “shit-smell filter” (though they didn’t use that exact wording on the label…not sure why…) on the top. Let’s face it. It’s basically a miniaturized bathroom for cats: a door, four walls, ceiling…if it had a stack of magazines and working plumbing, I might be tempted to check it out. Alas…no magazines.
Anyhow, our cats, the previously-mentioned orange tabby (aptly named “Kitty”), and our somewhat dimwitted mutt-cat Dolby (anyone get it?), seem to derive great pleasure from the litter box. I’m not kidding, either. If they were to suddenly develop opposable thumbs and were in desperate need to fill out a warranty card, they would have to list “Other” and fill in, “Digging and crapping.”
I don’t get it; other cats don’t seem to be as into it as our cats do. Other cats might dig around for a couple seconds, squat, cover it up, and then go sleep or chase a distraught insect or fly.
Not our cats.
Nope, our cats get in the box and, for fifteen minutes, scratch and kick cat litter every which way. Sometimes they ‘talk,’ but most of the time, it’s just SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH…scratch……scritch…………scrit………………
SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH
I’m surprised no one’s though to implement this as a method of torture; the sound of freshly sharpened claws (from our couch, of course – it’s the only true way) peeling away small scrapes of plastic is enough to break anyone. Joe Pesci had it all wrong in ‘Casino.’ See, he should have went with the cat torture instead of the vice. Then he wouldn’t have to pick up the eyeballs, which couldn’t have been fun at all.
I digress…
Due to the fact that our cats are constantly scratching on the walls, it is impossible to know if they are demanding it be cleaned or if they’re doing it to satisfy some strange impulse. Sometimes they’ll be scratching at fresh litter for a half an hour. You’d think there were millions of encrusted turds in there.
This morning was one of those mornings. The cats were in there again, as they are every morning, at 5am, peeling away ribbons of plastic shit-hut liner. This, by the way, is amazingly loud. I don’t understand it; it defies all laws of logical acoustics.
Anyhow, they’re in there scratching away while we are showering, taking the dog out, making our smoothie etc. While I am drinking the last of the morning’s power smoothie, I hear the scratching. But this time, it’s a little duller and closer. It sounded like thread being pulled and ripped from its base. Time to investigate.
I walk into the bedroom to find Her Orangeness pawing and scratching at a wayward shirt and a pair of shorts. The moment she sees me, she takes off into the living room, leaving me to find the atrocity that lay ahead. I kneel down and pick up the clothes and discover they are drenched in pungent cat urine. Wonderful. I then go and check the purity of the cathouse’s litter and find it strewn with crap and clumped pee. Not thinking about it, I gather the litter liner and get it ready to take to the dumpster, which necessitates gathering another liner and dumping fresh litter into the box.
Except.
And there’s the rub. Except there is no more cat litter. We are effectively screwed. I had to run to the store at 6:45am to purchase cat litter and bring it back, fill the box, and then leave again.
One of the more hectic mornings in recent memory.
So, how was your morning? It can’t beat mine.
In order to curb this situation, we invested in a large blue plastic box. It’s kind of cool, actually. It opens in half for easy crap removal and even comes with a nifty “shit-smell filter” (though they didn’t use that exact wording on the label…not sure why…) on the top. Let’s face it. It’s basically a miniaturized bathroom for cats: a door, four walls, ceiling…if it had a stack of magazines and working plumbing, I might be tempted to check it out. Alas…no magazines.
Anyhow, our cats, the previously-mentioned orange tabby (aptly named “Kitty”), and our somewhat dimwitted mutt-cat Dolby (anyone get it?), seem to derive great pleasure from the litter box. I’m not kidding, either. If they were to suddenly develop opposable thumbs and were in desperate need to fill out a warranty card, they would have to list “Other” and fill in, “Digging and crapping.”
I don’t get it; other cats don’t seem to be as into it as our cats do. Other cats might dig around for a couple seconds, squat, cover it up, and then go sleep or chase a distraught insect or fly.
Not our cats.
Nope, our cats get in the box and, for fifteen minutes, scratch and kick cat litter every which way. Sometimes they ‘talk,’ but most of the time, it’s just SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH…scratch……scritch…………scrit………………
SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH
I’m surprised no one’s though to implement this as a method of torture; the sound of freshly sharpened claws (from our couch, of course – it’s the only true way) peeling away small scrapes of plastic is enough to break anyone. Joe Pesci had it all wrong in ‘Casino.’ See, he should have went with the cat torture instead of the vice. Then he wouldn’t have to pick up the eyeballs, which couldn’t have been fun at all.
I digress…
Due to the fact that our cats are constantly scratching on the walls, it is impossible to know if they are demanding it be cleaned or if they’re doing it to satisfy some strange impulse. Sometimes they’ll be scratching at fresh litter for a half an hour. You’d think there were millions of encrusted turds in there.
This morning was one of those mornings. The cats were in there again, as they are every morning, at 5am, peeling away ribbons of plastic shit-hut liner. This, by the way, is amazingly loud. I don’t understand it; it defies all laws of logical acoustics.
Anyhow, they’re in there scratching away while we are showering, taking the dog out, making our smoothie etc. While I am drinking the last of the morning’s power smoothie, I hear the scratching. But this time, it’s a little duller and closer. It sounded like thread being pulled and ripped from its base. Time to investigate.
I walk into the bedroom to find Her Orangeness pawing and scratching at a wayward shirt and a pair of shorts. The moment she sees me, she takes off into the living room, leaving me to find the atrocity that lay ahead. I kneel down and pick up the clothes and discover they are drenched in pungent cat urine. Wonderful. I then go and check the purity of the cathouse’s litter and find it strewn with crap and clumped pee. Not thinking about it, I gather the litter liner and get it ready to take to the dumpster, which necessitates gathering another liner and dumping fresh litter into the box.
Except.
And there’s the rub. Except there is no more cat litter. We are effectively screwed. I had to run to the store at 6:45am to purchase cat litter and bring it back, fill the box, and then leave again.
One of the more hectic mornings in recent memory.
So, how was your morning? It can’t beat mine.
posted by The Haiku Review at 1:43 PM
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