I’m not what you might call a cat lover, but several girlfriends and ex-wives have been. One day my tolerance for ammonia and bathroom kitty poop boxes reached an all-time low, which was about the same period in my life that I grew tired of spent kitty litter pellets sticking to the bottoms of my bare feet after stepping out of the shower.
So I decided to construct an outdoor “privacy area” for the felines, a project that would, once and for all, free up the bathroom for humans like me who don’t poop in boxes.
I designed a conveniently hinged laundry room window exit that opened to a rabbit wire full enclosure cage (approximately 4x4x8-feet tall complete with a cheap bar stool step for a kitty landing) extending from mid-window to ground level underneath our carport roof. I snipped open an access doorway at the bottom of the rectangular litter cage, allowing easy removal and dumping of oversize litter pans. In the process of clipping the thick doorway mesh with a pair of wire cutters, the last snip action slung a hooked piece of galvanized wire completely through my right nostril — impaling me quite fashionably yet hooking me unceremoniously onto the rabbit-wire panel. Try as I might, I was unable to disengage my bloody nose from this rather large piece of jewelry. Humiliated beyond belief, I was forced to bellow for my wife’s assistance: “MAUREEN, come QUICK — I’ve almost finished the kitty litter project!”
Eventually, Maureen stopped laughing long enough to unhook the hooked wire from my nose. For a week or two I wore a bandage similar to the one Jack Nicholson sported in the movie “Chinatown“.
The window cage was a smashing success. The cats loved to perch on the stool inside the cage, observing all that happened in the fresh outdoors all around them — especially the chattering birds, who loved to laugh at the curious caged animals pooping in a pan of gravel.
You get laughed at a lot…..