LISTEN

Listen! Listen! Cat’s pissin’!
Where? Where? Under the chair!
Run! Run! Get the gun!
Too late! He’s all done!

I’m not sure why, when I was in my tender Snot-Nose Years, my daddy - Eli, Hizzownself - would regale me with silly little tunes having to do with the excretory behaviors of household animal companions, but, well, there you are.

Urinating felines, of course, deserve especial opprobium, whether in song or in real life. This is because, as everyone knows, there are few things stinkier than cat piss. It’s even funkier than French washed-rind cheeses.

Cat piss is not a problem hereabouts, thanks to our cat’s inherent proclivity to urinate in a litter-filled box. This localizes matters and provides effective containment; further, our use of deodorant-laced clumping litter quickly converts any excreta to neutral boulders of what I call cacacrete.

When you travel long distances with a pet, however, you have to wonder. Will the little beast maintain bowel and bladder discipline? Over the course of a seventeen-hour car trip, will things get... messy? This was the question facing me and the Mistress of Sarcasm as we faced two - count ’em! - lengthy road trips between the Northeast and Atlanta within these past few weeks, with Bernadette Catstro, her beloved kitty, accompanying us.

We had the requisite hard-shell cat carrier, along with a portable litter box that fit neatly on the floor of the back seat of the Mistressmobile. You could say we were ready in the event pish came to shove.

Bernadette, for her part, is a wonderful traveler. She is content to sit in her carrier and snooze for hours at a stretch. She is quiet, never yowling or complaining, never making herself obnoxious. And when we let her out of the carrier to stretch her legs - 99% of the time we’re on the road - she is happy to find a convenient lap in which to park herself.



Somehow, the pish issue never came up. I suspect the creature is part camel.



Or part dashboard ornament. (No, she wasn’t permitted to sit there for more than a few seconds.)

Both Bernadette and the Mistress of Sarcasm are back home in Connecticut now. We miss them already. I suspect Hakuna does not share our feelings... at least as regards Bernadette.