honeymoons and cat dookies

One of the little joys of marriage is that you get to split up the chores. In our household, my husband has taken it upon himself--bless his little hamstrings!--to be the emptier of the cat box. I can hear him in the bathroom right now, gasping for breath and swearing as he unloads the turds one by one and flushes them down the toilet. For a relatively small, eleven-pound beast, my cat is quite prolific, capable of up to six trips to the kitty litter box in a single afternoon. Just the other day we counted thirty dookies.

My husband also always has a cup of espresso waiting for me when I wake up, and as I drink it he prepares me a perfectly-cooked egg, sunny-side up, and a raisin bagel. Then he serves it all to me to eat as I gurgle my way through the morning news and twiddle with my blog.

In exchange for all this I occasionally make dinner and I scratch his head for him whenever he asks. I think it's good arrangement. Except for--I have to admit--the cat-turd part. I feel kind of bad about that. It's just not an even exchange.

However, in return for the unpleasantness of cleaning out cat boxes, my husband is granted free reign with the water gun--a really powerful "supersoaker" that emits 10,000 PSIs per blast, from a range of up to thirty feet--which he gleefully uses to "train" our cat. And I don't say a word in protest (or sympathy). Now every morning as I enjoy my coffee I have the privilege of watching the cat hurtle from room to room, ears flat against her head, pursued by my husband with a fully loaded water gun the size of a bazooka.

I like to think that it's an arrangement from which we both benefit. And for those who maintain that cats are untrainable, let me assure you it is not so.