First off I have to say that Barb and I will be celebrating out 36th anniversary next week, so you know whatever I say doesn't count.

We have always enjoyed our pets. Kids, pets, full house, lots of fun. Silly kids all got big, educated, and moved away. We started our retirement dream full time RV'ing with 2 Chihuahua's and a cat. As these things go the dogs got older and died, the cat got cancer and died. After agreeing we didn't want anymore pets I come home from a 4 day trip and Barb is crying. She adopted a dog while I was gone. Kota is a great dog, a little neurotic, but a great dog. Prozac helps a lot (the dog, not me). But she has severe separation anxiety. Howls like a wolf when we are gone.

So Barb gets the idea that Kota needs a kitty buddy to keep her company while we are gone. Ok, that might work. Of course I am deathly allergic to cats, but I will deal.

Off to the pound today to find a kitty to adopt. 600 to choose from. This is a no kill shelter, a noble cause. It's a bit overwhelming. Barb gets teary eyed at the sheer number of homeless pets, the twenty something behind her is crying. Unwanted pets are a tragedy.

She wanders around a bit while I hold Kota in the waiting room, they won't let our dog into cat adoption arena. Kota is shaking like a leaf, she has been in the pound, she knows what goes on in these places.

Barb comes out with a little piece of paper and says she has 2 candidates and wants to know what I think. This is where my 35 years of experience kick in, I tell her I will go have a look, the rest of the stuff on my mind will forever be buried.

A couple of Siamese type kittens. Both pretty, cute, adorable. The little female is sedate and pretty much uninteresting. The little male is standoffish, defensive, and half blind in one eye. I tell her the female would be the better choice, she says the male was giving here little kitty bites of affection. Odd, I thought he was trying to bite my finger off. We will get along fine, I don't bite cats.

So we start looking at cat equipment, of course the most important decision is the litter box. Barb finds this thing on Amazon where you can train your cat to go into the toilet. Ok. The idea being you put the litter box on the toilet, it has removable sections making the hole in the middle bigger and bigger until your cat is accustomed to using the toilet sans litter, or not.

Yea, it's a real thing. She says it will be great. The cat will go on the toilet and we will just have to flush every so often. Sounds good.

While I remain a skeptic that this plan will actually work I do love Barbara a lot and support her in all of her life's endeavors. But my dilemma is that I am not sure cat litter is going to work real well in the black water tank. Yup, I am responsible for the black water tank, she doesn't want anything to do with it. Mostly it will be ok, after all, it's only a holding tank and not a collection tank, so adding absorbent material that essentially makes clay mud shouldn't be a problem, right? Or not. Sticky mud in the bottom of a holding tank. This doesn't sound good to me. I mean, we all know about the dreaded black pile, that condition where people leave the black water tank open to drain and material piles up in a mound in the center, dries, hardens... Not good. Would kitty litter do the same thing? Is there any kitty litter that dissolves completely like toilet paper?

I am pleading with my RV family to help me find a workable solution to this problem. Is there any kind of kitty litter we can put in the black holding tank that won't cause issues?