Like any good auntie, my sister has sent first Mau-Mau and now The Boys toys Toys TOYS every year. There is the rat-on-the-stick; there is the laser-pointer; there is any number of stuffed mice and catnip pouches and fuzz balls and toys that bounce on an elasticized string.
After Mau-Mau Kitty passed last year, I thought maybe I should gather up the toys and retire them after many honorable years of service. Before I could make up my mind to do so, we adopted the kittens who loved those toys and set about chasing, hunting, and tearing them up with great joy and abandon.
But saving the old toys hasn't prevented buying new ones. Snapdragon likes Da Bird; Lickity likes sparkle balls. They both like ostrich feathers. And so in this way, the living room has come to resemble the type of toy-filled obstacle course usually associated with people who have quintuplet toddlers.
What's a fur-mom to do?
A while back, I hit upon the idea of alternating cat toys, the way designers in fancy magazines advise you to alternate accessories to keep things fresh. The problem, for us, is where to store the toys, as we have so very little storage space and so very many stuffed mice.
When I took Lickity to the vet a few months ago, I put a blanket and one of his favorite toys in the carrier and realized: THAT'S IT!!! Since we so rarely use the carrier, it's a great place to store cat-related items. The carrier is easy to find, and by designating it as the official cat-stuff-storage box, it's easy to find the supplies, too. No more digging under the bed! No more rummaging through the closet!
There are so few clear victories in life, but surely figuring out the perfect place to store crinkle balls and kitty nail clippers counts as one of them.
Above: the cat carrier as perfect cat-stuff storage. Below: inside the box.
