Year 6: Poop Scooping Robot

As previously mentioned, we have two cats.  While we love our cats, no matter how much you love your cats, no one loves litter.  It's gross to scoop the poop of another creature, but it's even grosser when they've left it for you in a smelly little box and then you have to fish it out like you're on a terrible treasure hunt.  

I've always hated litter, but since I've been pregnant Brad has taken over litter duties.  This has made me realize that I should never have to scoop litter again because I love not scooping litter.  Brad disagrees.  I've been plotting.

Flashback to about six months ago.  Brad came home and told me this story about a magical poop scooping machine that one of his friends just bought.  These friends are very nice, but they are also way rich, and they're kind of weird.  

As an example, they didn't use diapers for their kid, they just held her over the toilet every time she looked like she had to go...from the time she was a newborn.  They swear by it and said that she was potty trained by the time she was six months old.  I don't even kind of understand this.  So when Brad told me about the magic robot and that they remodeled their bathroom for it, I was pretty sure this thing was 1). very expensive and 2). dumb.  I was half right. 

Basically, Brad explained, this litter box scoops the poops and pees (yeah, not that impressive), and then it washes the litter (which is actually little plastic pellets), dries the litter and sends the poops and pees into the sewer.  Whoa.  Hold your horses. 

That's right, you hook it up to either your toilet or the washing machine outtake valve that goes into the sewer, and all the pees and poops get swept away.  NO human intervention ever!  

This was nuts, but at the time seemed like something that was just a little too nuts.  We both laughed, and I just filed it away.  And then...I got pregnant.  

The litter box was previously upstairs, on a tarp, in the closet of a bedroom we don't use (okay, fine we call it the "Cat Room."  Yes, we are ridiculous people.  Judge me.  That's fine.)   I didn't want the litter box upstairs by the baby room.  

But where to put it?  If we put it in the laundry room, the obvious choice, it would be right by the kitchen.  That would be stinky and not hygienic.  Unless...

I casually planted the seed with Brad "Remember that cat pooper scooper Alex and Martha got?  Wouldn't that be cool?"  He wasn't sold.  "It's fine where it is," I believe were his exact words.

But, then..we got new carpet.  With the baby coming and the new carpet, I explained, there was no way that the litter box would remain in its current home.  He was still on the fence.

The final straw was we found out Brad will be gone for work for three weeks while I'm still preggo.  Who will scoop the poop then?  "I guess we'll have to have some kid come over every day and scoop the poop.  Too bad we don't have that magic poop scooping robot."  He didn't bite, or so I thought.

A few days later, out of the blue I got a text message from Brad saying the robot was on the way!  Hooray!  Winner!!

When it came, we installed it and then watched it run through a full cycle, which takes 20 minutes.  We both sat on the laundry room floor watching our robot.  "I can't believe this has become our Saturday night," said Brad.  "Yeah, and we paid a lot of money for the show," I said.  It was amazing though, and I couldn't tear my eyes away.

Okay, now look, I know how ridiculous this seems from the outside looking in.  I realize this is a luxury item, and that people in third world countries are starving and we got a litter box that cleans itself.  I also realize it uses a lot of water because it washes the litter three times after each cleaning, which I think is overkill (although I did take it off auto-cat mode and have it on manual mode so I can choose when to clean it...which kind of makes me feel better).  

I'm not ashamed of the robot, but I'm do feel a bit guilty...BUT I'M SO HAPPY!!  I LOVE THIS MACHINE!  I LOVE IT!

It has solved a major dilemma in my life and it is keeping our home cleaner.  Plus, if you amortize the cost over just one year, it's less than $1 a day.  I mean come on, a single dollar to never have to touch litter again?   I do realize that I could be giving that dollar to a child in need, but I will give other dollars to that child, I promise.  

My final rationalization is that we didn't buy anything for each other for our anniversary this year, so this is our anniversary present.  And everyone knows that year six is the year of the robot.



Videos of the Robot in action (this is my first attempt at videos on the blog, so hopefully it works):