To Pee or Not to Pee (In keeping with the emerging Shakesperian theme of this blog)

You know, I've been extremely busy, between all my commitments to my record label, my upcoming event on pay-per-view, my dedication to The Friends of the Faux Foundation and the flood of fan mail I receive constantly. So please forgive me, gentle reader, if I have neglected this blog. It's just not possible to post inspiring thoughts to live by or new details of my exciting adventures every single day. I know some people who do manage to find the time to grace the internet throngs with a daily update. To them I say, "You have my admiration, but I think you should get a life."

Today's entry is inspired by some recent conversations in one of the more active feline chatrooms. Did you ever notice how many varieties of cat litter are on the market? There must be millions of them. Somebody is making a killing on crap.

Of course, the best place to pee is in the dirt or on a nice persian rug, as nature intended. But that is not always possible or even practical. Many cats are urban dwellers and don't get out of the house much. At least not without a struggle. And have you ever tried to find some privacy out there in the world. It's almost impossible. Even our neighborhood drunk guy who we watch from our window stumbling around in the middle of the night has taken to peeing right in the middle of the street. We look for him sometimes, when it's quiet and still and Daddy is sound asleep, just to see where he will pee next. Jett yelled out the window at him last time, "At long last, you have no sense of decency?" I assume he must either be a stray or his owner doesn't change his little box and has no persian rugs in the house.

But I digress. It's my nature. I get off the subject at paw. The neighborhood drunk is a whole other story. Back to cat litter. It's amazing stuff. And it comes in so many varieties. We prefer the super clumping, unscented, dust-free kind. It's almost impossible to find. Oh sure, you can get dust-free, but it doesn't clump. You can get super clumping, but it's got a funny perfumed scent and makes lots of dust. You can get the kind that's dust free, but it doesn't clump either. How difficult can it be to combine these three simple qualities?

They even make cat litter out of old shredded money. One company has a brand of cat litter made from old newspapers. Yes, they sell old shredded newspapers and cats are expected to pee in it. We tried it once, but it was way too complicated. I got sidetracked reading a piece of a headline from the Entertainment section and wound up peeing over the side of the box onto the floor. Oops.

Another problem is the kind of litter that fails to hold it's clumps. I'm sure they did all kinds of market research, pouring water into it and confirming how nicely it clumped. But they neglected to scratch around in it to see how well the clumps hold together. There is nothing worse than clumps that come apart when you scratch. It clumps up just fine when you pee in it, but the clumps have little or no staying power. They just fall apart when you try to bury them, until you can't even tell anymore where you've peed before. Then, the next time you have to go, you find yourself stepping into a box with millions of little, tiny pieces of former clumps scattered throughout. This is extremely unpleaseant. Can you imagine stepping into the toilet and trying to find a place where you haven't already peed? It's just not nice. And all those little particles get stuck between your toes and you wind up dragging them into bed with you. Which brings up another quality that needs to be incorporated: non-tracking. We do not like cat litter that gets caught between your toes and then tracked all over the house.

This is not rocket science. No, apparently it is about a million times more complicated than rocket science. Otherwise, they would certainly be able to invent a cat litter that clumps nicely, has no scent, does not produce dust and won't get stuck between your toes to be tracked all over the house.

This is an impassioned plea to cat litter manufacturers. Please get your act together and understant that cats are truly not that hard to please if you simply dedicate every moment of your lives to our happiness.

In other news, I have been working on my memoirs. I have received so many requests from far and wide to tell my life story and I know you will all be thrilled and delighted to read the true account of my fascinating journey. It will be told in six volumes - one for each of my lives thus far. Please be patient while I work with my editors and publishers to hammer out the details and get waivers from anyone who the pubisher thinks might try to slap me with a libel suit, whatever that is. I am dictating it and Jett is transcribing. He is lousy at typing. And he has tracked cat litter all over the keyboard. I rest my case.

Love,
-Figaro