prev do they know it's Thanksgiving at all? next
2004-11-26 | 2:42 a.m.

Whoever came up with the idea that we should make cats live indoors and train them to shit in boxes is on my list today. Seriously, who was it, Orwell?

Yes, you guessed it, I neglected the litter box far too long, and I have paid the price. Rufus is an outdoor cat (thank God) but we are fostering two teenage kittens who produce astonishing amounts of solid waste. And I absolutely hate the litter box, but it's my job to clean it because I was the one who wanted to foster the kittens in the first place. (Actually, I signed up to foster dogs, but they didn't have any dogs that day, just an overabundance of kittens.)

But since Rufus won't use the litter box anymore, I didn't really remember just how horrible the whole experience can be; that getting up close and personal with every last morsel of excrement, or else sifting through an oceanfront expanse of sand only to release ammonia fumes so toxic my nostrils burn.

It's bad enough that the thing smells so awful, but the cats also get pissy if you don't keep it clean. So this morning, while I was attempting to sleep in, two of my nephews showed up to be babysat and discovered a pile of yellow cat shit under my chair. They discovered it by stepping in it and tracking it all over my room, actually. Happy Thanksgiving.

I never thought about it before, but what a strange idea is the "shit list." My sister used to talk about her shit list all the time; she still does. Either I was already on the list or I was about to make it. Sometimes, I even got to the top of it. But I can never remember being taken off the shit list.

I suppose I'm still on there.

But what does it mean, shit list? That a person on the list is, figuratively, shit?

P.S.: I can't believe it is Nov. 26th already. Where the hell did November go?!

prev archive next
3 comments