By: Annna [2003-11-13]

The Cat's Ass Journals

the third installment of an irregular series

In case you missed it:
Thursday, 14th August 2003

Not too much progress today. Negative, really. I put the last disposable roasting pan in the toilet with a hole in the middle but litter kept spilling out. Couldn't get a lip going. The cat also seemed dubious about it. Eventually, I cut a circle off a plastic cup and wedged it in the hole to form a little rim to keep some of the litter in, but it wasn't quite the right size.

Came home from the fair (rode mechanical bull) to find the cat carefully fitting her entire body into the pan full of litter, aiming butt out and peeing down the side of the toilet.

Goddamnit. We need a new mop; this one is the rectangular kind and is also starting to come apart. It was late and I was hot and tired, so I just threw out the last roast pan and put the spare litterbox out in the kitchen. I am tired of cleaning pee off the bathroom floor with this mop.

I guess the cat just doesn't understand where the pee is supposed to go.

I put a very small layer of litter in the spare litterbox; at least I can work on that angle while I'm letting the bathroom rest.

Matie and I had a long talk. She has an idea: we need to make the cat a toilet simulator. I had thought about that earlier, but this time hit upon the realization that we could just buy a bedside commode. It'd be perfect! The reason for a training toilet is so we could do some drastic and semi-permanent modifications to it without leaving Matie and me with nowhere to pee.

Matie thinks the current problem is that the cat is jumping up to the toilet, then stepping down into the pan. This confuses her when it's gone. We need to have a flat pan at seat-level, then put a hole in it.

(Matie thinks the best success would be if the cat can pee into a regular, unmodified toilet.)

Matie's idea is to tape the flat pan up there, then replace it with a round one made the exact shape as the seat, then make a hole and transition to a donut-shaped litter pan on top of the seat. Gradually we reduce the amount of litter, possibly substituting grip tape (my idea), then voila, the cat is peeing in the toilet.

It sounds like it might work. It seems like the main hurdle is teaching the cat to pee into something, not just where she's standing. We could fill the bucket part of the BSC with water, maybe even blue water, so she didn't stand in it.

Friday, 15th August 2003

Did not find bedside commode (henceforth BSC) at Goodwill after school, before work. Also did not find it last night at Fred Meyer or Wal-Mart. Action plan is to go to some estate sales before work on Saturday.

Cat is peeing into shallow litterbox just fine. She is still much louder (vocally) than usual. I think this experiment is upsetting her worldview a little.

The bathroom smells like cat pee, even though I used so much bleach the many times I cleaned up in there. We need a new mop. Also, I think I didn't clean the actual side of the toilet, so that could be what stinks.

(I was hoping that the pee smell meant the cat was still trying to pee in the bathroom, but that is unlikely.)

If we have a BSC in the kitchen as the cat training device, at least it'll be easier to clean under. Our bathroom is insanely small, our toilet crammed beside the sink and inside a fiendish L-bend. It's hard to clean there.

Saturday, 16th August 2003

Last night at work I went through the yard sale ads and circled a few that sounded like a longtime invalid had died. Today, score! We found a nice bedside commode and I talked them down to ten dollars. Other than that, nothing. Cat is still using the regular pan without much litter in it.

I haven't cleaned the bathroom again, but we did buy a mop. It's another rectangular mop, not a stringy one, but it's made out of metal, not plastic, and looks higher quality.

Didn't set up the BSC yet. Maybe tomorrow. I need to get some cardboard, I think, to make the sides.

Wednesday, 20th August 2003

Where the time does go! I have been at work and school and taking too much advantage of Flicks & Picks' one dollar rental days to work on the cat toilet situation. Also, yesterday we found out we will have company (normal people) tomorrow and we usually kind of live in squalor, so things are a little hectic. Plus Matie needs to clean up the jam all over the floor so we can ask the landlord in to investigate why the stove keeps electrocuting her.

The pause has been good for the cat, though. She had resumed her habit of pacing and yowling terribly at night, which she had stopped for several months as she finally settled in here and learned to stay away from Matie. The ceaseless yowling is reducing in duration and volume as she is assured of a stable place to poop.

I do have one change I will implement tonight: a smaller catbox. Her original litterbox was not designed to be one; it was a Rubbermaid Roughtote box. Those are the best storage containers ever, if you don't have the money to make marble canopic jars for everything. They're also pretty good catboxes in the smaller sizes. You can get them about two feet high - which is too high for most cats to jump but is excellent for storing blankets - but the smaller sizes are about eight inches tall, which is taller than a usual catbox (cuts down on spray) but not insurmountable. The length and width of a Rubbermaid Roughtote are about 14x20 inches. The new box is pretty cheap and nasty; it's thin, brittle plastic and measures 13x18 inches. I swapped it in only because I thought I'd be cutting it down gradually and didn't want to ruin a Rubbermaid tub. The newest box is by the same company and is equally horrible, but it's only 10x14 inches.

I think that practicing on the floor in a proper (but smaller) catbox will help the cat later when she's in the BSC catbox. She had trouble on the toilet figuring out that even if all her paws and body was in the litter pan, her urine could go down the side of the toilet. A familiar box might help her figure out elimination cause and effect.

I also think our trash collection day has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday. They haven't told us anything, but last week I got everything ready Tuesday night and it wasn't picked up until Thursday. Matie and I racked our brains, but couldn't think of any holidays. This week, the same thing. Must be Thursdays now.

This is actually related to the cat thing, because it means I can put the catbox out in the trash in time.

Thursday, 21 August 2003

The BSC was from an estate sale, and had a little latch hook cover on its lid. Until I can engineer the seat-mounted litterbox, it's closed and in the corner by the window. Apparently the cat spends a lot of her time napping on the closed lid. Will this be good or bad? Only time will tell. At least she'll have practice jumping up there.

She is doing just fine using the smaller box; no aiming problems.

Monday, 25 August 2003

It's been a while since I've done anything. Status quo; the cat is using the smaller litterbox in the kitchen. Tonight I watched Scotland, PA (best Macbeth adaptation yet) all alone, Matie being at her GURPS game. I hate not doing anything while watching TV and Mom had bought us a tub of bleach wipes, so I put my hands to work cleaning off the BSC. Close-up, it was pretty disgusting. The latch hook cover had some actual dried feces on it - with matching dried smears on the back of the seat - and I'm pretty sure the bucket hadn't been washed out. Is there anything less classy than selling a toilet chair without washing it? I deal with this kind of thing all the time at work, though so it was clean in a twinkling.

Matie has a plan, which I executed as far as I understand it: I built a 2" wall around the outside of the toilet seat, then another one on the inside rim, making a doughnut-shaped area that could contain litter. I made a sturdy bottom for the hole, too, so the entire toilet seat can be covered in litter. The plan is to get the cat to use this, then reduce the litter on the seat and get her to aim for the litter in the center. After she figures that out, reduce litter in the center and develop a hole, until she's pooping straight down into the BSC bucket. (I'll fill it with water for verisimilitude and odor control.)

I had worried about what to use in constructing this monstrosity masterpiece. Matie suggested corrugated plastic, but there aren't any elections right now and I hate paying money for things. Luckily, I remembered that we had some spare bubble insulation. It's like bubble wrap in between two flat layers, slightly more rigid and coated in mylar. It's pretty good insulation, and it turns out it's also a decent structural material. It was a little more wobbly than corrugated plastic would have been, but it was also more forgiving.

Making the rims/walls for the seat was a little tricky; I wanted to make it easy to remove one set of walls without taking the other off, as the cat got more precise in her movements. I used duct tape (lots of it) to make the whole thing water-tight, along with a few staples to hold walls in their circular shapes while I taped them together. I think the sides will be independently removable, but it may be more difficult when I can't raise the seat (due to the cat poop and litter on top).

I think the bubble insulation will be more comfortable for the cat than corrugated plastic, too. It has some give.

I wanted to get this set up, but I was pretty tired. I didn't put any litter in, but I did write "SPAAACE TOILET" on the underside of the lid in dry-erase marker. The lid doesn't close now, due to the increased height of the seat.

Matie got home and just laughed and laughed at the toilet, which is very shiny and duct tape-y. I finally added "CAT" to the label to shut her up. I still think it'll work. I'm going to bed.



Don't miss The Cat's Ass Journals, Part 4
[2003-11-13 01:53:00] Virgil Phutzenrueter
this is the best thingsihate series EVAR. but now i feel a little bad for the cat. who wants to have her elimination fooled with in such a wanton manner? i hope there will be a happy ending.
[2003-11-13 04:52:00] The Cheat
Finally I have my limmerck, and so does antwan, but mine makes perfect since, his does not. I'm taking posty and antwan Down!
You're forgetting something... [2003-11-13 04:57:00] Antwan
But what about Knifekitten? Could by hypothesis have been WRONG?
Cats... [2003-11-13 11:01:00] Morticia~
I am beginning to hate them.
But then lunch I am beginning to like.
Ah, lunch. Such a friendly little word. Add a word or two and the meaning can be forever and irrevocably changed. Lunchbucket comes to mind. And because, with the exception of the dawg (yes THAT dawg) and perhaps a certain 12 year old daughter, I am the lunchbucket in question, and doing lunch made by me could be a dangerous lunchtime activity. Even better than the word lunch which is a noun and 2 verbs according to Websters dictionary, is a word or two entered into a cheddarless sandwich. The sandwich is a naughty little leftover from my daughters own LOVINGLY prepared lunch and consisted of cheddar cheese, AGed in age, with a smattering of freshly ground black pepper and good old fashioned Kraft Miracle Whip. This would be called mayo in some parts of the world but I like the WHIP part, so I do not use that pedestrian term mayo for the tasty white substance that is spread on bread across this great land. Sexual innuendoes aside, my daughter did not partake of the bread part of lunch yesterday, managing to sneak the thick slices of cheddar OUT of the bread, and because she is only 12, and not aware that throwing away the whole sordid affair would destroy the evidence forever, she carefully resealed her cheddarless bread back UP into its environmentally friendly container whereupon I POUNCED on this evidence of her callous unloved-ment of my LUNCH-making skills and TOSSED it into the sink with a sob. LaterMUCH later my friends, a husband DID come home to dinner that consisted of small NEW potatoes carefully sauted in butter, brusssels sprouts given the same treatment with a dijon chicken breast entre and a carefully chilled 15 pack of beer on the side. The beer was a peace offering as I DID piggishly and without forethought, drink his last remaining beers the night before. As his dinner congealed in the cold oven, I partook of this 15 pack of beer till I was sated. For every hour he was late, another cold pale can of nectar entered my kneck. By the time he actually showed up for this lovely meal prepared by my own hand, it had grown as cold as my love for this man; but the meal was not to go to waste, oh no. Because this very morning I fairly SPRINTED out of bed, and armed with a cheddarless sandwich, I tucked a love note so poignant and sweet that even the bulbs planted this fall spelling out a naughty message in the front lawn to my beloved would not compare. Slipped betwixt the bread slices, the spicy note did spell out in detail his transgressions, and was sealed with a spittle-y kiss. For good measure, in another environmentally correct container, there reposed 5 brussels sprouts and many many toothpicks, doused with congealed dijon sauce and stirred but not shaken and a half-eaten uncovered bowl of tortilla chips; an unfinished snack for my daughter (that DOES come home for dinner) from the night before.
It is for you to guess what was on the love note (unless you PayPal me 5 bucks), but let me tell you, when he takes a MANLY bite out of that loveless bread, he will drag out a soggy but indelibly written missal of which the world has never seen. I myself will be dining on Spicey Chicken Mr. Noodles and downing the rest of my peace offering, and perhaps laughing maniacally as I go about my day.
I now wish I had canned cat food in my cupboard, of course, because as another husband in another time found out:

Payback is a bitch, and her name is Morticia.

spamsition [2003-11-13 12:22:00] posthumous
what an amazing transition. It makes your long irrelevant comment so poignant, somehow.
Irrational hate. [2003-11-13 14:02:00] Antwan
The only thing I hate more than Posthumous and his Zirealisms of terror is Morticia and her long posts of terror.
That's one big post. [2003-11-13 16:45:00] The Cheat
Has she/he ever thought about writing articles instead of POSTING HUGE COMMENTS?!?! So how is Antwan's limmerick?
Yay [2003-11-13 17:45:00] The Cheat
OMG you guys, I just sent my limmerick, Hope you like..um...Top Secret Editors.
[2003-11-13 19:59:00] Brynnn
Were we the normal people?
[2003-11-14 01:54:00] some cat
morticia's comments MAKE this joint

keep em coming you big bitch
(said in a jocular tone of course)
what?!?! [2003-11-14 04:57:00] The Cheat
If morticia's comments is what keeps this place going....HA horrible, I piss on you all. If thingsihate has to rely on morticia. Post more of Antwan's Articles!
No Antwan No Morticia [2003-11-14 09:08:00] posthumous
I want more cat's ass. This is only updated through August.
to Brynn [2003-11-14 12:26:00] Annna
Yes, you were the normal people. By "normal" I only mean "much less filthy," though, so don't worry.
What?!! [2003-11-14 15:41:00] Antwan
BRYNN GOT A PERSONAL COMMENT!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I'VE PUT MY HEART AND SOUL INTO SUBMITTING FOR THIS SITE AND I'VE BARELY BEEN IN THE NEWS, ONCE!
rapidly changing the subject. [2003-11-15 11:01:00] Antwan
Tommorrow is the end of the contest... and... and... another awful Zirealism...
ooh [2003-11-15 18:29:00] The Cheat
Har Har, Antwan does like Annna, plus he Really Likes Katie Myers. enough of this, True Crime: Streets of LA is so kewl, Die you friggin illegal cock fighters!
And! [2003-11-15 19:35:00] Antwan
I'm also a star basketball player.

On a completely unrelated topic, Posthumous is going DOWN.
True Crime [2003-11-15 22:07:00] Andrewsarchus
I want to check it out. I rented Freedom Fighters, which I beat in a short time (2 days.) They don't make games like they used to; I beat Crimson Skies in just as short a time. I might by a Gamecube. I dunno... I might just get a PS2 for FFXI and stuff.

"GURPS game"? Going under rivers pouring (with) sperm. That's my sort of game, although that's an odd use of "pouring." In 8 days I am legal! Where would one go to college to study linguistics?
The Cat Void [2003-12-10 14:47:00] Cyborg
I live in the country. Ergo, my cats,(3 neutered girls), can come and go as they please. There IS a litter box in the basement, in case the weather is so foul that they do not wish to go out.

I let them out to pee. They meow at me. Three distincly different voices. Occasionally they all go together, but not often, as this makes it look like they are real close, which they are Not.

There is no cat odor in the house, even tho the litter box, only gets changed about once a month. They hate it, but they will use it.

My favorite,Little One", occcasionally uses the toilet, but I assure you that it was her idea, since I have no compunctions about my position here. She also drinks from the toilet, which used to bother me, since the water bowl is with 3 feet of the toilet, and is self feeding. Why, I asked her, do you have to drink out of the toilet? NO answer.

Anyway, I discovered, that she only drinks from the toilet when it is clean, or at least unused. I don't use those additives, so I am unconcerned about her drinking city water. I hate it, but she doesn't seem to mind.

So,in my mind, trying to force a cat to use the toilet, is rude. One should feel glad that they will use a litter box, at all. One should let them outside so they can tend to business, hunt, and burn off some of that energy. That way, when inside, they want to sleep, since their urges and personal needs are satisfied.

I lose one occasionally, to the traffic, but they would be killed in wild, if they were free, so it has to be an acceptable loss. Don't take me wrong, as I have cried my eyes out over their loss. It is always my favorite cat that gets killed. Those are the ones who wait for cars to come, to see if they can beat them. They get older eventually, lose their zip, and get nailed. The Manx, which I could go without, never does such things, and is extremely careful about traffic, and other people. No chances for her to get nailed.

It guess it says something about the onces I like the most, since they are chance takers, and freedom lovers. Great with people, and have always slept with me. Little One gets up every time I do during the night, despite my frequent trips to the bathroom and refrigerator. I have insomnia. She just wakes up and goes, and doesn't go back to bed unti I do.

I probably wouldn't have cats, if I could not let them go outside. They need that freedom, even fixed, to make their lives even. It also helps me keep curtains and furntiture. Their little claws are razor sharp from being used on trees and stumps, but they don't scratch in the house!!

I wish you well with yours, and hope you give up the insane idea that cats were meant to be toilet trained. It is beneath you. It is certainly beneath them, unless......it's their idea. :)

Mike Sartor(Cyborg)


http://www.kdf-computers.com/cyborg/cyborg3.html
who cares [2004-02-01 12:42:00] Bfist
Cats are that knowing "lay off" animals.They sucks asses and should be a part of food for black assed people.that is all of my advice to comment this bitch's animal ;)
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