Category — tmi thursday

I went through my archives, and I can’t see where I’ve told this story before, so here goes.

When I was a little girl, changing the kitty litter was one of my chores. One week, I was late getting to it, and Daddy insisted that it be done before he got home from work the next day or my was gonna be grass. Of course, I woke up late and had to rush. I dumped the box into the trash bag and went to fill it back up….

We had no kitty litter. What’s a girl to do? I can’t leave the box empty! What can I use to put in there until Daddy and I could get some more kitty litter?

Back in the day, Daddy shopped at Pace (just like Sams), and so in my frantic searching for a replacement, I came across a twin box of Grape Nuts. Perfect. Right size, right texture, there’s enough here. It will do in a pinch, and I am certainly in a pinch.

So I ripped open both bags and filled the kitty litter with Grape Nuts, and skipped off to the bus stop, thoroughly satisfied with my solution.

When Dad got home from work that night, I told him that I changed the kitty litter, but we have to run out and get more litter. Of course this confused him. How did I change the litter if we were out, and if I just changed it, why would we need to run out right now? So, proud as a peacock, I explained the situation. We headed off the the  store and picked up some Tidy Cat and when we got back home, Dad said I needed to go ahead and change it again, because Grape Nuts have no odor control.

Have you ever let Grape Nuts just sit in milk? Do you know what happens? They absorb it all, and when they do, they swell up into a big pile of mush.

I took the lid off of the kitty litter, and there it was.

Grape Nuts mountain, a la cat piss, with a few turds for presentation. The mountain of mush flowed over the edges of the litter pan and on to the carpet. I called Dad for reinforcements. He came into the room, looked at the litter overflowing with swollen cat piss Grape Nuts and turds. That was when he bust out laughing, shaking his head as he went to get the shop vac. We cleaned it up, gagging and laughing the whole time, and then Dad had to clean out the shop vac. It smelled like wheaty toasted cat waste, and was so mushy and gummy that we ended up having to let a few spots dry on the carpet for a few days and just cutting it out once it had dried to a ammonia and grain cement type mixture.

No one in my immediate family has eaten Grape Nuts since.

Happy TMI!