For the last seven-and-a-half years, I have loved and cared for my cat Beavis as if he were my own son. I love when I get home from work and I can’t get out of my suit until he finishes licking my head. I enjoy the fact that I can put him on my lap and he will sit there and purr while I watch television. I laugh at how no matter where he is in the house – all I have to do is open his Velcro catnip toy named “Super Carrot Guy” – and he comes running like a bat out of Hell…

…but I can’t stand the fact that he has one bad habit he has carried all his life – he uses the bathroom floor like it is his litter box.

Since day one, Beavis has done this – and he has done it in every place I have ever lived with him. I have tried different litters, changed litter boxes, scolded him – even stood with him while he used the bathroom – and still, he does this. Why? I wish I could read his mind and figure it out. Even now, today – my white bathroom floor is yellow – and no matter how much I try – there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

You have no idea how many times I have woken up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom – and felt my sock get wet because I stepped in one of his – as I have come to name them – “rivers.” I can’t tell you how many mornings I have showered – and had to play Hopscotch to get out of my bathroom so I do not get dirty after being clean. I can’t imagine how many rolls of paper towels I have gone through in my life because I have used them to clean my floor – and I don’t want to know how many hours of my life I have spent on my hands and knees re-sanitizing my bathroom.

Now that Julie is living with Beavis and I, they actually get into fights over his bad habit. Almost every morning, she grabs him, brings him into the bathroom – and screams at him to stop using the floor like it is his litter box. I stopped yelling at him years ago – because I feel there is no point anymore. No matter what I say or do – he will do it anyway. So I actually sit back and laugh as she screams at him – because he literally yells right back at her in the form of growls and hisses. Truth be told, I think his little mind thinks that the entire bathroom floor is one big litter box – and unless I can learn to speak cat – nothing is ever going to change that.

I love him very much and would give my life for his. I just wish that he would stop this horrible habit. If anyone reading this has any advice on how I can get him to stop doing this – it would be greatly appreciated.

I would love to write more about this subject – but now I have to go clean my floor…