Place: Hardee's
Lunch: 1/3 lb grilled cheese bacon Thickburger, bacon cheddar fries, Dr. Pepper
I wonder why they didn't toast the bottom bun. Wonder if that's normal, or if they just screwed up. Whatever. Excellent otherwise.
Apparently we're FINALLY getting a local HD newscast today starting officially with WHO's 13 News at Five, but secretly soft-launching with the 13 News at Noon. You're terribly excited, I can tell. KCCI, much like their reporting, will continue to be fuzzy. My favorite newscast will continue to be KWCH Wichita's because they've been in HD for awhile already and they have a dog on the weather staff.
Ever feel like it's impossible to get ahead...that no matter how much or how little money you have, time and space converge to make sure you have just enough of a crisis at all times to have some expenditure that will keep you from getting over that bump? As if your budget was part of the delicate balance of nature?
*suddenly hears Activia theme song in head*
Well, nature called. For the cats, specifically. My litter box needed to be replaced last week.
You're thinking "Litter box? You can buy those for less than five bucks!" Yes. Normal litter boxes. I'm replacing a Litter Maid. And the solution I've found to replace it costs more than the monthly rent of five of my past apartments.
When I first relocated to the Townhouse of Solitude, I discovered something that had gone unnoticed at the old place...Everything was covered in litter dust. Everything. Regardless of where in the house it was. And everything smelled like cat litter, an odor I'd apparently mistakened for "old house".
Chester confirmed the litter problem when he trotted across my new black appliances, leaving behind litter dust footprints that had previously gone undetected somehow.
So I started looking at dust-free litters and settled on some stuff called "the worlds best cat litter" or some such nonsense. And the dust problem went away. But the litter didn't control odor as well and the cats didn't like the feel of it. So I got the self-cleaning box known as the "Litter Maid" to try and keep the smell down and keep the overall box cleaner for the cats. That cat litter ultimately didn't stick around (the cats and I swear by Dr. Elsey's "Precious Cat" 99 percent dust-free clumping litter now), but the Litter Maid did.
The Litter Maid has a big electronic comb that senses when a cat has done its thing and combs the litter box, moving the waste to a covered collector tray at the end of the box. In theory, this should result in an always-clean litter box, reducing odor and making cleanup easier.
In theory.
It has its flaws. First off, it's noisy in a loud high-pitched way. Second, they cost $100-$150 dollars. Third, the collector trays are not designed to be re-used and replacements are absurdly expensive. (But an Amazon reseller came up with a neat gadget that lets you use plastic grocery bags instead. It's awesome.) Fourth, stuff sometimes sticks to the bottom and to the rake, so the box isn't 100 percent clean. Fifth, clean litter would also end up in the collector tray (shoved in front of waste, I suppose).
Then there's my cats, who for some reason insisted on only using ONE side of the box. They do their thing, then cover it with the litter from the other side. So after a day or two, the box is half completely empty, and has a half row of groomed litter. The collector tray is also half empty and half full as a result, with everything spilling over the full side onto the carpet.
Litter doesn't just spill there...the cats throw it, track it in their paws, and who knows what else. This required the use of the Litter Maid accessory they don't tell you about...the Shop Vac. In fact, I was able to fill the box several times with litter I'd vacuumed up.
The Litter Maid doesn't have a terribly long lifespan, either. Most online reviews claim 1-2 years before the motor dies or starts doing weird things. That's how long mine lasted before it just kept combing and combing and combing over again because it didn't think it was finishing a cycle (when it was). So I started looking into replacements. I wasn't going back to the traditional litter box...the Litter Maid DID pretty much eliminate litter box odor, and significantly reduced scooping maintenance.
I wanted something quieter, cleaner, and with a bigger collector setup that would take longer to fill than the Litter Maid (which, tops, was two days).
Enter the Litter Robot.
The Litter Robot is a big globe on a base. Cats enter the globe, do their thing in a surprisingly small amount of space, and seven minutes later, the entire globe rotates like a cement mixer, clearing the litter of waste and depositing it into a drawer in the base (lined with any plastic bag you can find that will fit, which unfortunately does not include plastic grocery bags). The entire process also completely removes the unused litter from its sitting position and mixes the entire batch, returning it evenly dispersed in its proper place so it's like it's fresh every time a cat enters.
Fascinating.
So I ordered one. It showed up a couple of days later in a box nearly as big as my garbage can. I removed the dying Litter Maid, discovered a few pounds of litter that had escaped and was hiding under the Litter Maid, broke out the Shop Vac, cleaned, and set up the Robot. It's a little wider than Litter Maid Mega Elite, but about half as long, so I even gained some floorspace.
I was immediately sorry...that I hadn't set up the camcorder to catch the cats' reaction.
The cats were horrified.
They circled it. They observed it from afar. They saw it cycle. Chester stuck his head in, but wouldn't enter. Maggie wouldn't even approach it. They 'held it' for a good fifteen hours.
Finally, Chester tried it out and immediately was fine with it. Maggie, who considers Chester her own personal guinea pig, decided it must be okay and followed suit. I noticed this morning that Chester is working out the correlation between the cycling process and the waste disappearing...he did his thing, stood by and waited for the cycling process, then peeked his head in and dug around looking for it. He either thinks it's an amazing magic trick, or he's starting to figure out what's going on.
Quieter? WAY quieter. Cleaner? WAY cleaner. There's almost NO litter on the carpet near the unit since I set it up. Less litter waste? WAY less. The collector tray had nothing but waste clumps in it when I cleaned it (negative aspect: BOY did it smell!) Odor? NONE (unless the drawer is open, obviously). Capacity? I cleaned it for the first time after four full days...and I could have gone longer. This thing is ingenious.
More expensive? WAY more. $349. You could buy two or three Litter Maids. You could buy a hundred cheap litter boxes. But you know what? It's worth every penny. At least if it lasts.
We'll see.
