Litterbox Nightmares Part Deux

Okay.

I am going to try to write this post without using profane language.

This will be difficult because I'm going to tell you about our weekend and the freaking Cat Genie.

To summarize the entire ordeal, let me just say that:

a) I am an idiot.
b) My cat is no dummy.
c) Shit happens.

We received the magical new litter box early last week and my lovely husband, who indulges my every whim, patiently spent the better part of two hours putting the damn thing together and hooking it into our laundry room plumbing. His dad would have been proud of him.

He got it assembled and turned it on a wash cycle, which is supposed to begin the process of cat acclimation, which, let me tell you, is a figment of some pet behaviourist's imagination. We don't train cats. They tolerate us. A friend of mine says that we shouldn't kid ourselves. If cats were bigger, they'd just eat us rather than put up with our crap. I believe that.

Anyway, the Cat Genie's operation can only be described as deafening, like AC/DC-concert-right-by-the-speakers loud. We "oohed" and "aahed" at least I think we did but I might be mistaken because I was reading lips. Because I COULDN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK.

Our cat, bless his heart, was stretched out as far as he could be, nosing around a corner to have a look at the monstrosity. He was curious and only slightly timid, which we took to be a good sign. Over the course of the 35 minute cycle (yes, you read that correctly) he inched his way closer to the laundry room until eventually, he was perched atop the washing machine staring at his new potty below. It's safe to say that he wasn't impressed.

We left the old litter box in the room like the manual said. We were to let the old box get all nasty and full so that our boy would make the choice to use his new one.

That didn't work.

Instead, we got a filthy eyesore perched under the open window and those lovely spring breezes we experienced this weekend picked up the scent of excrement and gently wafted it through the house.

I got a bit edgy.

We read in one of the manuals that we might want to try filling our cat's old litter box full of the new plastic pellets that lined his new one. That sounded like a good idea.

Yeah, that didn't work either.

He hopped right in and used the box with the weird pellets but he didn't scrape and scratch and then, he couldn't get out of that thing fast enough. That little voice inside my head told me we were in trouble.

And instead of voicing my concerns to my infinitely patient husband, I did something monumentally stupid.

Remember hearing of parents who hope to teach their kids to swim by throwing them in the water? Well, my next move was to insist that we remove the old litter box entirely and make him use his new one. Because forcing cats to comply has worked so well in the past. Dallas raised his eyebrows but didn't make a fuss. He removed the old litter box to the litter box graveyard garage, where it kept company with all the other Littermaids that had bit the dust.

Sunday, we woke up peacefully to no children, a gorgeous morning and zero obligations. I got up to make coffee and walked out to the living room to find that our sweet and clearly desperate cat had SHAT IN THE GODDAMN NORFOLK ISLAND PINE plant. Except, I didn't know that right away.

Oh and he scratched alright. We had dirt flung over a six foot radius on the BEIGE carpet. I'm not kidding. So, being anal retentive and just one cell shy of a working brain, I hauled out my freaking $500 Dyson vacuum and began to suck up the mess until the smell and the chunks of what I thought was soil, but was actually POOP encased in soil, began to smear on the inside of the vacuum's dirt receptacle and stink up my personal space.

I retched.

And then I swore.

I marched back into the bedroom and announced that the effing Cat Genie was history. My husband calmly answered, "OK babe." Which is a perfect example of why I married him. Because he takes crazy and does wonders with it.

And then I walked into the laundry room to find our cat peeing on a beautiful, handmade tablecloth that we had purchased in Mexico.

I swore again.

By this time, my hubby had gotten up in an effort to help. For the next hour, Dallas quietly unplumbed and dismantled the CatGenie and placed it back into its original shipping container. At some point, one of us opened the door leading to the garage and our cat bolted through it. I was content to leave him in there all day but necessity forced me to open it back up to get some cleaning supplies.

On a shelf on top of a storage bin and about six inches from the shelf above it, we had placed one of the old litter boxes. Inside it, cramped and concentrating, was our cat going about his business. It was then that I knew that we had made the right decision because if the cat could find that bloody litter box in the expanse of the garage, with the golf clubs and Christmas decorations and Harley gear and garden equipment, there was no way that he couldn't find one an inch from his nose in the laundry room. He would never have used the CatGenie. EVER. And this might just an enormous blessing in disguise if the Amazon reviews of this product are any indication.

So, I'm an idiot, the cat is clever and we're going to exercise that money back guarantee because I'll be damned if I ever clean cat shit out of my vacuum again.

(And for Mark N...top left of the page. Sorry..it's not terribly prominent.)