While purchasing cat litter , I realized the world had passed me by. Sure, I saw cars before they shed their primordial fins, watched grainy images of men walking on the moon and drank root beer flavored Fizzies. Those kinds of things will date someone. But you really know you're too old when you've outlived cat litter.

Cat litter as we know it has about bit the dust. Now where there should be bags of dirt, you see...crystals. Crystals! Artifical chemical pearls. Is it any wonder our dear, aged cat can't abide the new fangled stuff? Using the box is, after all, a natural function. Who wants to perform a natural function paw deep in decidedly unnatural chemical "crystals"? Dirt is what's wanted. Clay. Certainly not anything transparent.

Cats are notoriously creatures of habit. Sabrina clings to her dusty, clay litter desperately as a geriatric author to an Underwood Manual. We reasoned and remonstrated, but her arguments proved more pungent. So I continue to search the shelves for her benefit, finding it more and more difficult to locate a bag or two of old fashioned cat comfort. And none of that scented stuff either, please!

I suppose it is what you are used to. There are cats growing up today who never knew the feel of clay under their paws, who probably think the wild woods are filled with expanses of super scent absorbent crystals. It's the old timers like Sabrina, set in their ways, who are keeping the traditional litters in business. When the last of that cat generation goes, I suspect the old ways will go with them and the dirt filled litter box will join the outhouse in the backyard...just another fond memory.