Verbatim

I don’t think I mentioned that we finally had to put down our old lady cat Luna back in April. Yes, she who did not exactly welcome Calvin and Phoebe as kittens, and ended up spending her life in one part of the house while those two were in another. It wasn’t ideal for her or for us, but that is how it worked out. Aside from feeling bad about it, I also hated the fact that Calvin and Phoebe thus couldn’t use the litterbox in the basement like Luna (and every other cat we ever had), so we had to put their litterbox in our closet. So, as sad as I was about Luna, I was doing a happy dance about the litterbox situation. That’ll show me…

First I moved the litterbox from the closet to the top of the stairs so the kitties would know where to find it (Phoebe isn’t the brightest cat we ever had, but she’s a freaking genius compared to Calvin). I also closed the closet door so they wouldn’t get mixed up (which is pretty inconvenient for us, as you have to walk through our closet to get to our bathroom). All was going well for a couple of days until one day I neglected to close the closet door and Calvin decided to poop in the closet. Whoops! So I made sure to close it, and after a few successful days, I moved the litterbox to the bottom of the stairs. Then I sprayed the entire closet with some magical (nontoxic) spray that is supposed to remove odor and repel cats. I tried to leave the closet door open for one night, and he did it again. D’oh! Closed it up and moved the litterbox to the top of the basement stairs. All’s well. Then a few days later to the bottom of the basement stairs. Good job, kitties! Then finally into the basement proper. That worked for a day or two (closet door still closed just in case). Then Calvin decided he’d had enough and peed on the kitchen floor. I sprayed every square inch of the area with the magical spray. So the next day he peed on the kitchen table. Then I bought an even more super-duper (nontoxic) spray and coated the entire kitchen. Calvin didn’t care and decided to pee on the floor again, this time in Andy’s shoes for good measure. More spray. More pee. Day after day.

Calvin, you broke me. The litterbox is now back in our closet. You may be the stupidest (or perhaps laziest) cat on the planet, but you won. (Shown here with his beloved tinfoil ball.)