You may be wondering what happened to me this week — did the hives overtake me? Did I drown in work? No, the hives didn’t overtake me, but I am on a two-week regimen of steroids to make sure they go away. I didn’t drown in work, but I am regretting a recent decision that turned out to be a big deal — a new litter box for Kip.

I swear I did my research. I scoured all sorts of reviews on Amazon for all the automatic litterboxes available out there — which include an impressive array of automatic, even flushing, self-cleaning models — and was impressed by ScoopFree‘s average four-star rating from more than 400 reviewers. So I made the decision (with Trinity following along, of course) to shell out about $160+ for the new automatic litter box, a hood and a permanent tray.

Trin set it up on Monday, and I made another genius decision that we should try to set it up in the living room, since there was more room — the box is surprisingly big. Sigh. Long story short, I had to clean up both spray and a Kip butt dragging across the carpet before we moved the litter box back to its usual spot in the bathroom.

The other genius aspect of the whole debacle was that I completely forgot that this litter box uses an entirely different type of litter than what Kip is used to. We usually use Scoop Away for Kip, but this litter box must use ScoopFree crystals, which apparently feel totally different to cat feet.

So, where did I go wrong here?

• I bought a new, automatic scooping litterbox
• I bought a new, automatic scooping litterbox that uses crystal rather than regular litter
• I put the new, automatic scooping litterbox in the living room, a totally different location than where his old litterbox was

Which all led to the aforementioned spraying and dragging. We’re going to take Kip to the vet on Monday, just to make sure everything is good and healthy, but please take a lesson from me — if you’re going to make a change, make just one at a time. Seriously.

At least we’ve been able to ameliorate the location problem. Finicky cat.