"Inappropriate elimination."

Just read that phrase again. It’s not one full of promise, is it? You might not know exactly what it refers to, but I’m sure you have a few ideas, and none of them are good. Welcome to my life.

“Inappropriate elimination” is a term vets use when talking about a cat that forgets it should always, always use a litter box for its unseemly kitty-business. Two of our cats are quite diligent about remembering this rule. The third one, Charlie, not so much. Over the past few weeks, Charlie has become a fan of inappropriate elimination. And it’s making us a little bit crazy.

Before I get any further into the foul business of Charlie’s foul business, I should give you a little background. Charlie is the oldest of the three cats currently breathing all the air in our house, but even so, he’s only two years old. He’s also probably the weirdest animal I’ve ever encountered. He’s so high-strung and neurotic that you’d think he did four tours in 'Nam. He is terrified of, well, everything. If I happen to be walking past him and I reach down to scratch his moron head, he flees as if I were holding a sword soaked in the blood of his ancestors.

Because of his overly developed sense of imminent doom, Charlie tiptoes around the house constantly. The other cats walk around like they own the place; he jumps at the slightest noise and looks like he thinks ninjas are going to drop from the ceiling at any moment. God forbid an actual ninja should show up at our house someday. My guess is Charlie would make a small whimpering noise, then burst into flames.

He also has a bit of a history with our good friend, inappropriate elimination. About six months ago, he had gotten into the habit of moistening anything on the ground that seemed remotely nest-like. Piles of clothes, sleeping bags, duffel bags, coats tossed onto chairs, you name it. Not cool.

The good news is that after we took Charlie to the vet, in the hope that maybe his problem was a physical one and not simply due to his gentle-breezes-freak-me-out nature, we found out that he indeed had a bladder infection. A few weeks of antibiotics, and voila, he was back to enjoying his moments of personal relaxation in the catbox rather than, say, a fully loaded laundry basket.

Life went back to normal. Months passed, seasons changed, I ate a lot of cheese dip. Then it started happening again. Out of nowhere, Charlie once again started “eliminating” in all the wrong places. First it was a laundry basket. Then a gym bag. Then a pile of the kids’ doll clothes. All irritating, to be sure, and concerning, but not the end of the world. We called the vet, who gave us a little plastic jar in which to collect a urine sample.

Sorry. I’ve been trying to avoid the word urine. It’s gross. But it’s not my fault that urine got such a gross name. Anyway, I tried.

So we had to collect this sample from Charlie. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to collect that kind of sample from a cat, but it’s not like you can just ask a cat to go in a cup for you. Nor can you hold him over the cup and give him a good squeeze. (Yes, I tried. No, it didn’t work. Yes, you’d think that it would have. No, Colette did not agree with my logic.) You have to empty out a catbox, put these little plastic beads in it, in an apparent attempt to fool the cat into thinking the box is full of litter, when in fact it’s only got a few stupid beads in it. Then you let the cat use the box as he normally would. There’s your sample. Like I said, it’s gross. Animals are gross. Nature is gross. This is why I will never work in any sort of medical field.

Anyway, so we started locking Charlie in a bathroom at night with a box that had the beads in it. We had to lock him up so the other cats wouldn’t use that box. Unfortunately – and ironically – Charlie refused to use the box the first night. He spent the night in a bathroom for nothing. Second night, same thing.

The morning after that second night, he did the unspeakable. While we were getting ready for work, he hopped up on our bed, rolled around for a few minutes, as he often does on our bed, then used it as a toilet.

Needless to say, we were not pleased. The cat had fouled our bed. He had never done anything above floor level prior to that. I would say it was a retaliatory strike, but that would be giving Charlie too much credit. At best, it was dumb luck.

Either way, we had a mess to clean up, and a cat to banish. We kicked him out of our room and kept him out for a couple days. We had to wait a few more nights to try getting a sample out of him, because we had other things going on and wouldn’t be able to take the sample straight to the vet the next morning. We felt a little bit bad about banishing Charlie from our bedroom, because our bed is his favorite place to nap during the day.

So, a couple days later, after we’d washed our sheets and blankets thoroughly, we let him back in. That night, as Colette got into bed to watch some TV, she let Charlie burrow under the covers – another thing he likes to do. Five minutes later, he crawled back out. Then Colette discovered that he’d left a present behind. Yep – he’d wet the bed again. There was much cursing. Much, much cursing.

At this point, Charlie is on Cat Probation. Basically, he’s banned from all the bedrooms until further notice. We’re continuing to give him antibiotics, and still attempting to get a sample out of him for the vet, but for now, he’s living in exile. And as a result, he is a sad kitty. He sulks around in the hallway outside our room, looking forlorn. He occasionally lets out one of his slow, whiny meows. It’s all very sad.

But you know what? His sad clown act isn’t going to work on me. Charlie has crossed the line. I keep picking him up, rubbing his belly and lovingly telling him that if he doesn’t stop messing up my bed before he gets better, I’m going to send him on a long walk off a short kitty pier. He sort of looks at me, as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but oh, I’m not buying that for a moment. I’m onto him.

So for now, we wait. We keep giving him his meds and keep locking him up in pursuit of the elusive “sample.” Hopefully this phase will pass in another week or two. And either he’s going to get past this little problem of his, or…well, or I’m going to have to learn how to sleep on plastic bed sheets.

It’s never easy.

Bob Rybarczyk (brybarczyk@sbcglobal.net) writes stuff. He is no relation to Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago, even though he’s asked that all the time. Look for his novel, “Acoustic Kitty,” at area Borders stores and online at Amazon.com. And coming soon, a compilation of the best of “Suburban Fringe.”