Water and electronics do NOT mix

Water and electronics do not mix. This is a lesson I learned the hard way, twice. Well, not really the hard way, because I wasn't electrocuted either time. Here, let me tell you the story.

I have two cats. While I love my cats, I hate cleaning the litter box. Because I have two cats, I have two litter boxes. When we first got Zoe, she used the litter box very politely. I just had to scoop every other day and she was happy. Then we got Sid. I don't know if I have a weird cat, or if it's because he's a boy, but he was not nearly as polite as Zoe. As we all know, cats bury their business. Zoe delicately moves litter out of her way, does her business and then gently covers it all up again.

Not Sid.

He takes on the litter box as a personal challenge each and every time he uses it - and he uses it a lot. I swear, that cat is a pooping machine. When Sid climbs in the litter box, I think he tries to dig for China. The cat is not happy until he can see the bottom of the box. And the more loose litter he can throw out of the box, the happier he is. That's why I have covered litter boxes now. He never threw "dirty" litter out of the box, but sometimes it seemed like there was more litter outside the box than in.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with electronics and water? Well, just be patient, we'll get there soon enough.

Because of my problem with my cat throwing litter around, I began to look into different types of litter boxes. I wanted to find one that would eliminate as much of the litter throwing as possible. During my research, I happened to come across a litter box that actually scoops itself! Can you imagine? How cool is that? It's the Litter Maid self scooping litter box, and it was $100. But I bought it anyway. It was amazing. When the cat walked into the litter box, he walked through a laser. About ten minutes after the cat finished, an automatic timer would send a rake through the box. At the end of the box, it would lift the used litter clumps up and dump them into a covered waste receptacle. It was awesome. And, the second best thing was that it came with a little cover for the box, so if Sid did throw litter out, it wouldn't end up on my floor.

Zoe was afraid of the rake, and refused to use that litter box. I had to keep an old one around, but that wasn't a big deal. Sid loved the new one. He'd hear that rake start moving and come running from wherever he was in the house to watch it do its thing.

After about seven or eight months, it was summer. I was in a cleaning mood, and thought I would do some serious cleaning. This included the litter boxes. I emptied them both out completely, and got ready to clean them. Now, I don't know about you, but I find litter boxes repulsive and I didn't really want to touch them with my hands. Not even with rubber gloves.

So, after a stroke of brilliant inspiration, I went into the garage and hauled out J's pressure washer.

It worked beautifully on the old standard litter box. It cleaned everything, and I didn't have to use chemicals or anything that could potentially harm my cats. I left it in the sun for an hour or so to naturally deodorize while I worked on the electronic box.

I figured that because the cats pee in the box, that it would be water resistant. Sounds logical, right? Wrong.

Apparently cats do not pee at the same force the pressure washer cleans. I broke that litter box, and I broke it good. It no longer scoops itself. It makes a weird sort of whining noise when I plug it in, and the rake moves at random intervals if it even moves at all.

Damn. Well, it was good while it lasted.

J was not entirely impressed with this move of mine. In fact, I got a mini lecture on electronics and water. And by mini lecture, I mean he ranted and raved and basically let me know that I should never do anything that dumb again.

Got it.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving. We were tired of trying to choose whose family to visit at Thanksgiving, and invited everyone to our house. We figured we could host dinner, and then we wouldn't have to choose.

It's the night before everyone is to arrive, and we've made all sorts of preparations. We've done the grocery shopping, the turkeys are in the bathtub defrosting (my sink is too small, okay?), I'm cleaning the house and J is cleaning our room. It was bad. And we fought. But that's another story, too.

I finally went to sleep at 3:30 a.m. I got back up at about 7:15 to finish the last few things I didn't get done the night before. Including cleaning the coffee pot. Now, I don't drink coffee or tea, so I really don't know much about coffee pots. I know enough not to submerge the base, though, because I'm really not an idiot.

Apparently, though, coffee pot bases are not as waterproof as one would imagine. As I was wiping it down, I guess I got a little overzealous with the sponge, and got some water on the faceplate where the clock is. When I plugged it in, I couldn't figure out how to get the clock set again. I went and woke up J, saying "I can't figure out how to set the stupid clock on your coffee pot. You need to come fix it. I don't have time to mess around with it anymore."

He was not happy to be woken up this way, but I was still mad and frankly, didn't care.

He got up and trudged into the kitchen to see what the problem was. He immediately diagnosed it: water in the electronics. He was mad. I got the same lecture again, with the bonus of an angrily muttered "That coffee pot was NEW when I bought it!"

Okay, now I'm laughing. J still didn't see the humor, but I did. I mean c'mon, if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? I pointed out that we still had a coffee pot at our disposal because I had borrowed one from a friend. (We were going to have seven coffee drinkers in the house, and half like decaf and half like regular. We planned ahead and borrowed one from a friend who was going out of town for the weekend.)

J was still peeved that his coffee pot was apparently broken, and stomped off back to bed.

I still thought it was kind of funny.

I waited about fifteen minutes, and walked back to the bedroom with soapy rubber gloves on my hands and turned on the bedroom light. I said to J, "So...about the toaster."

I still think it's funny. J still doesn't see the humor. What do you think?

P.S. After about an hour, his coffee pot dried out and started to work again. And there was nothing wrong with the toaster. I just wanted to yank his chain. I'm mean like that.