Proper Poop Placement: The Litter Box Dilemma

I am a cat person, however, I do not own a cat.

This does not please me.

Grace is also a cat person.

Our lease says that cats are a-okay.

So we’ve got a situation where we both like cats. We both want a cat. Our landlord is down with us getting cat. We can likely afford a cat, assuming that he/she isn’t a total fatty and/or doesn’t have some sort of drug problem.

So why don’t we have a cat?

In one word, poop.

Our biggest sticking point in getting a cat has been where to put the litter box.

If you ever been to our apartment, you know that it’s pretty small and doesn’t offer any real “out of the way” location for a big box of feces.

In fact, the bulk of our apartment is covered in carpet and let’s be real here, folks…no one in their right mind puts a litter box on carpet. Sure, sure you can put mats under it or something, but you’re just begging your cat to grind poop into your carpet if you don’t put the box on a hard floor.

We’ve got three rooms with tile floors, but they all have their own drawbacks as well.

There is the bathroom which is super tiny and has zero free floor space for a litter box. If only you could request a cat that has learned how to use the toilet, we’d have ourselves a solution.

"Rest assured, I'm going to drop a deuce in your shoes."

The hallway is pretty narrow and there’s no good place to put the litter box without running the very real risk of someone stepping in it or—worse yet—accidentally stumbling over it and spilling the fecal-matter-laden contents all over the floor during a half-conscious middle of the night pee break of your own.

The third and final room with tile floors is the kitchen. Much like the other rooms, it’s pretty tiny so the space is limited. There’s also something quite comforting about NOT having poop in the room where you prepare all of your meals and it’d be hard to get over the loss of that comforting feeling.

The inherent un-catness of our apartment has kept us in the wanting stage for quite some time.

We are, however, getting the opportunity to do some cat-sitting for the next five days or so and we’re going to use it as a test run to see how we fair with a cat in the house and whether or not having a litter box in the kitchen is doable or gross as all get out.

While we’ve had numerous discussions about cats over the years, there’s one thing we’ve never really hit up, what kind of cat we want.

Do we want a kitten? Do we want an older cat? Do we want a rescue cat? Do we want to steal the neighbor’s cat and avoid all the paperwork? Do we want a purebred that speaks three languages and does yoga?

It’s a tough call, but I think I’d be inclined to snag a cat from a shelter. I’d already thought about this before, mostly because all of those commercials filled with weepy Sarah Mclaclan songs and sad kittens really break a dude down over time.

Last week, however, I stumbled upon the latest video ads for the Shelter Pet Project and basically, they nailed the point home. If we get a cat, it’s totally coming from a shelter.

All of the videos are worth watching, but I’m reposting the one I put up on Facebook last week just because it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. I’ve seen this video probably two dozen times now, but at the 20 second mark, I bust a gut every time.

I know, right?

If that doesn’t make you want to rush out and get a cat right now, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re dead inside and should be beaten unmercifully with a burlap sack full of John Grisham novels…and I’m talkin’ hardcovers, bitches!

…you know, or it means you’re allergic to cats and that’s cool. No harm, no foul.

Anyway, I’ve once again completely lost my train of thought here…ah, yes, poop.

If any of My Faithful Readers have any super smart litter box ideas shoot ‘em my way and maybe you can help expedite the cat acquiring process for me and Grace.

…you know, unless cat-sitting goes awful and we determine the only things we should ever be responsible for keeping alive are cacti.