Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Fall – Litter Logistics

George Sleeping

 

After lunch Monday, Emma’s cat snores reverberated through the house. If her brother George slept too, I might have time to scrub their litter boxes without a messy mishap.

The memory of the two minute dash I had made with the liter box from the upstairs bathroom to the basement still wrinkled my nose. I’d preferred carrying the box down the stairs for a one inch fresh topping of litter rather than lugging the twenty-five pound box of litter upstairs. Mistake. Before I had gotten back with the topped-up litter box, George had pooped in the shower stall.

So Monday, I tiptoed up the spiral stairs to check. Both cats slept on the loft bed.

I carried the litter boxes from the loft and the first floor to the basement then gathered the basement litter boxes. Keeping all five plastic boxes in an arc on the cold cement floor to remind me which box went where―as if the cats cared―I dumped, scraped, and scrubbed. Then I turned to grab a cardboard box of scented, multi cat, clumping litter and gasped.

No fresh litter.

Had I forgotten to tell my husband to put litter on his shopping list?

Or had Spence not heard what I’d said.

I could dump the dirty litter back into the clean litter boxes.

After all that work? Don’t be silly.

But driving to the store for more litter would leave the house open for . . .

What’s the alternative?

There wasn’t an alternative. With Spence in Cleveland fighting lead poisoning, I couldn’t send him to the store while I held makeshift diapers under the cats’ butts. And driving to Meadville for our brand of litter would take an hour. Not good. If I drove to Cochranton and bought pot luck cat litter, I could save a half hour.

Reassured by Emma’s snores, I climbed out of the basement, grabbed my purse, and slipped into outdoor gear.

At Market Place in Cochranton, I parked, jogged into the store, and grabbed a cart. Speed reading the signs above the aisles, I steered down the cat food aisle. Beside cans of food were two shelves of litter. I had a choice of one multi-cat brand. Lifting the first twenty pound bag into the cart, I read clay. The cats had used clumping litter. 

Could adapt to the different texture? They had to. I lifted the second bag, then the third, and left the shelf bare.

Hustling, I joined the checkout line behind an athletic grandma, who looked ready to hit the sky slopes.

Her three-year-old granddaughter clutched a clear plastic container to her chest. Sugar cookies with pink frosting and red sprinkles nestled inside.

The grandma pointed to the cookies. “Put them on the counter.”

The little girl lifted the container, set it on the counter, but didn’t let go. “Don’t put them in the bag,” she said to the cashier.

As the cashier scanned the container with her wand, her bored expression morphed into a twinkling smile. “Don’t eat all the cookies at once. That wouldn’t be good for you.”

The girl pulled the cookies off the counter. “I can eat one.” She pouted and turned to face her grandma. “One won’t hurt me.”

“You may eat one in the car.” The grandma picked bills out of her wallet and handed them to the cashier.

A tall man tipped his hunting cap at the grandma and laughed. “You’re going to sugar her up then send her back home?”

“That’s right.” She tucked her change in her wallet and scooped up three plastic grocery bags.

While the grandma and little girl walked out of the store, the little girl shouted, “I can have one cookie!”

Finally, I got to the register, paid the cashier, and pushed the cart with sixty pounds of litter through a cold, drizzling rain to the car. I lifted them into the trunk, and, as fast as I could without slipping in the slush, returned the cart. Now, if I got back before the cats woke up . . .

I started the engine and pulled onto Franklin Street. At the traffic light, three school buses turned onto Route 173 ahead of me.

Uh-oh.

Two buses turned right at Route 285, but the third, still I front of me, moseyed up the mile-long hill out of Cochranton.

The bus driver waited for an oncoming pickup to stop, then opened the door for two kindergarten children who, hand-in-hand, crossed the road. A quarter of a mile later, a junior high girl stepped down and strode to her farmhouse. Eight more stops along the three mile, no passing stretch of Route 173 added fifteen minutes to my trip.

Were the cats still asleep?

I turned onto West Creek, zoomed down the slippery dirt road faster than Spence would have approved, and pulled into the house driveway.

One by one, I lugged the bags of litter to the porch. Then, one by one, I lugged them inside to the kitchen table.

Emma snored, but George peaked through the rails of the loft stair landing.

Pulling off my boots but still wearing my coat, I fetched an empty litter box from the basement, set it on the bathroom floor, and lugged a bag of litter from the kitchen.

The plunk of George’s paws on the spiral stairs kept me motivated. I yanked at the top of the stiff paper bag.

It wouldn’t rip.

Plunk, plunk, plunk.

I hustled to the kitchen for a pair of scissors, dashed back, and cut the top of the bag.

George stared at me from the first floor landing.

I dumped litter into the box, shoved it under the laundry tub, and stepped back.

George padded to the box, stepped inside, and let loose a river of pee. Turning around in the box, he sniffed some dry clay litter then the litter he’d wet. With a puzzled expression on his face, he sat in sphinx mode and stared at the wet clay. After two minutes contemplating the new situation, he stepped out of the box and ambled to the great room for a drink of water.

Phew! Mishap averted.

Emma Opening One Eye