Christmas Cat Litter?
Meet Kitten. She often tries to kill me, but when she likes me, she really likes me. Kitten has made good days better and horrible days livable. She’s a great cat.
All cats are great. Even the terrible ones. They’re smart, they’re funny, and if you howl at just the right pitch, they’ll think it’s coming from some coyote outside.
Cats shit in boxes, too. For us, it’s a blessing and a curse. We’ll never have to stand in the freezing cold waiting for them to handle things, but we will have to share living space with a plastic box full of shit.
We own several cats, so we go through a lot of litter. I don’t know much about cat litter beyond what it’s used for, but I think that’s enough to know. If it works, cat litter will make the obvious downsides of having animals shit in your house more tolerable. If you own a cat, litter is as much a part of your life as, I don’t know, popcorn.
Nobody sticks with one brand of litter forever. Eventually, there will be an “incident,” and since blaming the cat creates a problem with no solution, you blame the litter. The pebbles are too small. The pebbles are too big. You are a mad scientist, and your work involves making cat shit less of an issue. The formula is constantly changing.
When you find a brand you can stand, you treasure it. It’s very hard to switch to a different litter when the current one works. It’s not like trying a new soda and disliking it. The repercussions are FAR more severe.
Right now, we think we have a good brand. I’m not going to tell you what it is, because I think that’s too personal for some reason. Just know that there have been no “incidents,” and we like our brand enough to travel twenty minutes out the way for it. Its purpose is just too critical.
Well tonight, and very uncharacteristically, we switched brands without some cat-related devastation to encourage us. Had to. Folks, you’re looking at CHRISTMAS CAT LITTER up there.
Officially, it’s Winter Pine, from Purina Tidy Cats. “A seasonal blend with super-absorbing crystals.” A Dino Drac reader tipped me off about this, and though I can’t find the name of this reader at the moment, I owe her a great deal of thanks.
In a world where bizarre “holiday edition” things compete with so many other bizarre “holiday edition” things, it gets to the point where nothing really seems bizarre anymore. But this? This does. For it is CHRISTMAS CAT LITTER. A way to mask the stink of cat shit with the stink of Christmas trees.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
A blurb on the back reads, “Super-absorbing crystals plus the fresh scent of winter pine will help keep your home smelling cozy and clean, all season long.” This blurb is, no joke, less than two inches away from a big warning about how parasites found in cat shit can cause toxoplasmosis. I don’t know if things still jump sharks, but if they do, Christmas just did.
Most of the crystals are the usual grey. The rest are HOLIDAY GREEN. I’m not sure if there are other differences between the crystals, because blogging about cat litter just doesn’t bring out the researcher in me.
It really does smell like Christmas trees, though. The more you shake it, the stronger the scent becomes. This is good, because cats sure do love to fling the stuff around when they’re doing their business. Has Purina actually found a way to make me want my cats to shit more often? I’ll give that a solid “maybe.”
I called Kitten over for a more “organic” shot. I didn’t want her to shit or nothin’. I just wanted her to sniff the stuff.
This isn’t a pan we actually use for cat-related doings, mind you. This was for photos only. I draw the line at showing you a litter box that’s seen real action.
But I wanted that damn cat photo, so I lured Kitten over with a series of self-made chipmunk noises. Not ten seconds after this picture was taken, she pissed on my canvas and ran off. I guess what I’m saying is, when I can’t add stuff to the site for a while because of work, it’s not such a bad thing. Work doesn’t put me in a position to have cats nearly piss on my arm. Only you do. You.
