Money Can't Buy Happiness, But It Can Buy a Cat Toilet

An examination of the pride and misplaced pee brought on by the Cat Genie.

Illustration by Jess Smart Smiley

Iam a cat hipster. I loved cats before the Internet made cats cool, and I got my own cats free-range, locally sourced from the dumpsters behind my college apartment. Granted, this meant that my cats were essentially raccoons when I first adopted them, but I just let my hipster flag fly: “Oh, your cats actually like you? That’s so mainstream…”

Over the past five years, my three formerly feral cats have each evolved from pissy wildlife to something resembling a pet. Though one of them cannot be touched without terror-peeing everywhere, and the other two would never dream of sitting on your lap or snuggling up beside you, they’re game for petting (on their terms) and playing (on their terms) and begging for pieces of your sandwich. Their little cat brains probably look like Swiss cheese, since they mostly subsisted on licking Hot Pockets wrappers and eating Q-tips for the first year of their lives. So I can’t really blame them for being developmentally ask…