May 12, 2005
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A KittenTale: Not for the Squeamish
Of late, I have been getting little wiffs and wafts of litterbox smell when I’m in bed at night in bed–not unusual, being that the litter box is like three feet away from my bed. Heck, in my 10×12 cabin, almost everything is three feet away. Anyway, the scent seemed to be getting more pervasive and intrusive, so this morning, fortified by two cups of MJB European Roast, I decided to investigate. I was planning on getting a showe later today anyway.
So I get down on hands and knees and check things out. Preliminary results are encouraging–I find 83 cents in cash–American, no less– and my good tweezers. This is kind of a big deal–I don’t own a razor of any sort and am not much good with scissors, so I use a pair of tweezers to for facial foliage maintenance. When a beard hair gets out of line, I say “Pluck it!”, and I do. But I digress.
Digging farther under the bed, I made a horrifying discovery. I had this flat full of really primo pyrite crystal clusters, maybe $200-300 worth. The kittens had been using it for alitter box. Okay, fine–who could blame’em? It LOOKS like a litter box. . . .
So I continue and drag out a big box full of hematite necklaces and carnelian pendants. It was shitty, too. Went still farther back, pulled out a box full of mostly NA literature, topped with a ream or so of printer paper. You guessed it–more poopo del kitteno. Rats! Going farther back, I found a loose rock, a really nice bit of silver-rich chalcopyrite. This was not good–why wasn’t it in the box, with the selenite crystal clusters and the peridot crystal clusters? Well, because the little darlings had shredded the damn box and used IT for their powder room, too. At this point, I was waxing wroth.
Not wishing to actually squirm all the way under the bed, I got my trusty dumpster-diving aid, a home-made three-pronged garden implement maybe three feet long. Reached under the bed, pulled out a knife catalog replete with various feline gore–evidently, Frankie had given birth on it–near it, anyway. Pulled out my camo t-shirt–whew, just kitten hair on it. Pulled out my really neat 1995 Iditarod t-shirt–it was clean. Then I fished out one of my faves, a souvenir t-shirt from the Quiet Riot 1991 Alaska tour–it was shitty. The shirt, not the tour. Okay, out on the porch to air and dry it went –along with the shittiest boxes of rocks. Finally, out came another shirt, a long-sleeved Eddie Bauer number that was thoroughly urine-soaked–out it goes to dry, maybe out in the trash. I’ll triage this stuff later. But the end is in sight.
I got the broom and dustpan off the porch, swept up the stuff and bagged it up, where it joined the other two bags of nasty trash that are destined for the dumpster.
Then I taped up the remaining boxes and sprayed them with cat-be-gone, this bitter apple essence that sort of repels them, and shoved them back under the bed.
Finally, I sternly lectured the two miscreants–Ginger and Peachy–and reminded them that the under-bed storage area is not, repeat not, a litter box, and that any further infractions will be dealt with sternly. Like as in turning them into little orange hats. Or tiny orange mittens.
They seemed suitably impressed if unrepentant. Time will tell.
Stay tuned.
Comments (10)
Boy! Better you than me. Are you sure it was all from the little orange guys? I hope they get box-trained before I try bringing one of them home to our house. I hope you saturated the underbed space with odor-neutralizer and cat-be-gone, or they’ll be going right back there again.
lol. your blog totally cracked me up. most people woulda said something along the lines of
“these stupid f–ckign kittens peed under my f–ckign bed. i f—cking hate them!”
you use gems such as “poopo del kitteno” and “i was waxing wroth” and “triage”.
how EXACTLY does a “suitably impressed if unrepentent” kitten look??
I’m with person up top. How does a “suitably impressed if unrepentent” kitten look??
You crack me up. i’m telling everyone to subscribe to you, seriously. You should be a comedy writer like Dave Barry.
To remove the cat smell from clothes wash them with 1/3 cup baking soda and 1/4 cup bleach in the washing machine(along with soap). Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Usually it does, sometimes it takes more than one wash. The recipe is on the back of some brand of soda somewhere. That works the best i’ve found for deoderizing laundry and it SHOULD not bleach or damage dark clothes but I would be careful with favorites until you’ve tried it with the brands of product you use. Baking soda alone helps any load of laundry get more clean than it would without it in the laundry.
I am coaching 12 pre-school thru 2nd graders in t-ball this season. Yes me. I even made a site for it on xanga. ‘redhawkstball’. I rock.
As a cat owner from way back — that is, way back when I owned cats — I can assure you that they understood every word you said, and will be good little kittens from now on — who have lost their mittens. But, just as a reminder to them, you might try raising your bed or lowering it altogether to the floor, for those low hideouts are too much a temptation for even the best behaved and well-schooled cats, which yours are surely soon to be. I have always found orange cats, which are usually dimly striped, to be the wildest of their specie when young, which is a strange thing indeed.
Puts one in mind of tigers. Please keep us posted with your delightful stories.
I think you might want to check with an ENT to see if your sinus cavities are working correctly With that amount of crap lying around I can’t imagine how you could even stand to venture indoors!
As for the bleach remedy, I respectfully disagree. About the only way to get rid of kitty smell is with an enzyme based kitty cleaner. Works beautifully.
Right now, the clothes are airing out on the porch. I do have some of that enzyme stuff, I’ll give it shot.
Oh, and RaLuvsMeat–you can see it in their face, you can see it in their eyes–lazy idle little schemers!
(with profuse apologies to the estate of James Joyce)
use the force
LOL! Reminds me of Hara, used her entire 2nd bedroom in the apt as a litter box! Neither one of us ventured back there when she moved out, left all that shit behind. People like that crackwhore give clean cat owners a bad name when it comes to renting (at least here in PA). Cats are CLEAN, the PEOPLE are dirty! (Oh, hey man, I totally did NOT mean that to bust on you, after I re-read it needed to make it clear. Things way different up in your country!) All the cleaning tips cracked me up tho. Old Felix used to piss all over Mark’s work clothes if he’d leave them lying on the floor. I told him to just pitch them in the litterbox….(hey man, the CAT was there first if you know what I mean!) Another funny Hara story – one time her old man woke up in the morning to a warm cozy wet feeling of cat piss all over his FACE! (it was Weiner, and he was about 20 yrs old so ya had to forgive the old coot)
Later Man! ps: agree with ‘wyrmfaery’ above – you need to go on David Letterman show … (everybody funny, YOU funny too!)