Xerox the cat is fat and healthy.

She’s a sweet, happy, OUTDOOR cat. We tried to make her an indoor cat, but we ran into a little problem.

She pees in the house.

She doesn’t mark her territory – she actually squats and leaves a puddle.  The first night she stayed inside the house, she peed on the kitchen floor. 

I moved one of our three (THREE!) kitty litter boxes upstairs and out of the basement, thinking maybe she didn’t know we had litter boxes.

The next night she slept inside she jumped up on the kitchen counter and peed on a plastic bag I had left out.

I didn’t know the pee was there, so when I moved the bag the next morning, it scattered cat pee all over the kitchen. 

And seriously, is there anything worse than cat pee?

The next day, on her way out the door, she backed up to the vacuum cleaner and sprayed it with pee to mark it.

She is now an outside cat, despite her sweet nature and the way she likes to sleep under the  covers at night.

Still, every once in awhile, despite our vigilance, she manages to sneak in – and when she does, she pees on something. 

It’s hard to dislike a cat that sweet, but I’m learning to do it…..especially after what happened.

A couple of weeks ago I took the boys swimming at the local pool.  I hadn’t planned on doing it until the next morning, but the DragonMonkey misunderstood what I meant when I told him we were doing it later.  I had told him we’d go swimming, tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.  He ignored the “tomorrow” portion of description, and when he woke up from his nap, he came bounding down the stairs.  “FWIMMING!  We’re goin’ fwimming!” 

When I tried to convince him that I’d meant we’d go “fwimming” tomorrow, his face crumpled with legitimate devastation. Something about the way he turned away instead of whining, trying to be brave—it tugged at my heart.  Glancing up at the clock I saw that there was still forty minutes left of the afternoon session. 

To heck with it.  “DragonMonkey, if you get in your swim trunks, right now, we can go swimming.”

He disappeared back upstairs with a flash of skinny legs, while I ran around the house, shoving towels and floaties and goggles and swim diapers and various other paraphernalia in the swim bag, before trotting upstairs to wake The Squid up from his nap.  Three minutes later we were in the car and on the way to the pool.  It had to be some kind of a record.

When we got to the pool, the lady behind the counter took one look at us before glancing at the clock over her shoulder.  “You’ve only got thirty minutes until we’re closed,” she warned.

“We’ll be quick,” I said with a smile, herding the boys into the small family changing room and closing the door behind us.

As I stripped clothes off kids and dragged their swim suits on them, I couldn’t help but notice the faint smell of cat pee rising up from the bag.

Great.  Just…. Just great.  That stupid cat had peed on the bag.  She was sweet, but man, I was really beginning to dislike that cat.

And then I went to go blow up the floaties.

I was in a hurry – I had less than 30 minutes to get the kids dressed, showered, in the pool, and then exercised well enough that they wouldn’t throw a fit about having to get out so soon.

I was in a hurry. 

I learned something that day.

Did you know that after cat pee sits in a puddle for a week or two that it dries out and becomes flaky, condensed cat pee? 

I was in a hurry – and I didn’t look at the arm floatie before I put the little plastic tab in my mouth to blow it up. 

Which is why I did not notice the  dried-out puddle of cat pee around the tab before I put it into my mouth, using my teeth to open the lid.

Which is how I ended up popping an entire little puddle of condensed cat pee flakes into my mouth.

I’ve had a lot of gross stuff happen to me.

I have never had anything that gross happen to me before.

I’m here to let you know that eating condensed cat urine is about as nice as it sounds.

Also, you know how cat pee smell never seems to go away, no matter how much you wash it?

Yeah, well, cat pee taste is kind of the same way.

Xerox is a sweet cat, don’t get me wrong, but I doubt I’ll ever really like her again.

Free cat.  Does anyone want a free cat?  Very friendly.  Excellent mouser.  Fantastic with dogs and children.

Not-so-tasty pee.

Anyone?

Do I have any takers?