On the various benefits of kitty litter

I like to think of myself as a cat litter connoisseur. I only have one cat, but I find it necessary to remove her waste into a lead biohazard tank every few hours.

Let us be like Dutch uncles. I do not fill my cat’s crappin’ box with sand. I buy the good stuff. I’m talking Arm & Hammer brand Stench Soaker Crystals for Multiple Sick Cats.

And yet, when come I home, I find that my cat either craps sixty times a day, or else invites her friends over. Or maybe she has a friend cougar. Something comes along, at any rate—perhaps some sort of cat litter fairy--and transforms the waves of smooth textured litter into a minefield of foul smelling clumps.

And it is the merits of these clumps that I wish to extol.

In olden days, see, I might have been forced to find some lesser projectile with which to assault the neighborhood dogs. Old apples or acorns, perhaps. But certainly not the Lovecraftian fecal matter, forged in the hell-bowel of the blackest cat, with which I am now provided. (She has a white patch on her tummy. We don’t discuss it.)

I swear on my mother’s Chihuahua’s grave, these clumps can kill a four pound dog. Maybe it’s their weight. Maybe it’s jagged shape. Most likely, it’s the solid tendrils of odor that actively seek mortal throats to strangle.

I used to have trouble with the local wildlife digging through my trash. No more. A clump in each barrel, and I find dead animals all over the driveway, every morning. And once a week, a garbage man crawls to my doorstep and manages a final, “Why?” before choking on his last breath and falling dead upon my bunny slippers.

Maybe I’m exaggerating.

But then, maybe I’m not. So keep your damn dog out of my yard.