Sunday, August 19, 2007

Time Equals Money

As I get older, I am more and more aware of the Time = Money equation -- and I'm also preferring to spend the money rather than the time.  Man, when I was younger, time was I totally would've worked a couple hours for 10 bucks.  Hell, I'd gladly spend a whole evening babysitting someone's kids for a buck an hour.  Now, priorities have changed.

Illustration:  I have a cat.  She uses a litter box.  She uses a clumping, scoopable, flushable litter.  This means that, every night, I scoop out (and flush) her deposits into the box.  As it is a clumping litter, all liquid deposits turn into little clumps, and they too can be flushed.  It isn't perfect, though.  Sometimes a clump will only partially clump, and you'll ultimately end up with little bits of, well, used litter remaining in the box.  Or there will be a clump or two that attaches itself to the bottom of the box and can't be completely removed.

Because of this, the box needs to be completely cleaned every coupla months.  One must dump the contents of the box into a big plastic bag and send it down the trash chute.  One must then scrub the inside of the box, removing any of the clumps stuck to the bottom of the box.  Usually, wearing rubber gloves is advised.  Oh, and one can't use a cleanser with ammonia, or anything else that might make the cat not want to use the box anymore.  Elbow grease is best.  After one scrubs the box clean, one must dry it out, then fill it with new litter.  Then one must clean the heck out of the sponge and dish cloth, because, y'know, they've touched the inside of a used cat box.  The whole process is probably done in less than an hour.

Or, I could just buy a new box at Petco for ten bucks.

You may now congratulate Jasmine on her brand new cat box.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm curious, why can't you use amonia or pine sol or a capful of clorox in the box.  I have a kitty and I wash the box.  Iuse toilet paper to wipe out the bottom of the box when I dump into a plastic bag and then wash it out.  Usually I will also boil water after that and rinse with boiling water and dry thoroughly before putting in new litter.  My kitty has always gone back to the box.  I will say, she doesn't like it when I change the litter once in awhile. :)  Have a great day.

Anonymous said...

With two "inside cats" I know whereof you speak. But being the hard-hearted ogre I am, my pussycats must put up with a scrubbing of the box with the toilet brush, a thorough soaking of the clean box with a bleach solution for a half an hour before drying and refilling. Frankly, if'n I could afford your method...

Tell Jasmine my cats have litterbox envy.