Cat Pee vs. Wooden Knitting Needles

An epic battle that has been raging for ages - but which will finally triumph? Thanks to Blinky, we may finally have an answer. Looks sweet and innocent, doesn't she? Docile, lovable, cute and posed? She is just this side of evil.

You see, Blinky is one of the four kittens I found in a drainage ditch and bottle fed and loved and cared for until the other three were old enough to go to new homes. As you can imagine, Blinky has a bit of a princess complex. When I moved to my new apartment, she did not adjust well. I did not realize how not well she was doing until I started smelling cat pee and started sniffing around. I discovered that random boxes containing books, bins with random contents, and a box with knitting patterns & needles were drenched in cat pee. Not misted, not a slight puddling but a concerted effort at soaking every single item in each box.

Horror! Disgust! A strong desire to pass out from the smell! I dragged boxes outside and tossed most things in the dumpster. There is no saving a book from cat pee. The cd's could be cleaned, the patterns were done, and the throw knit from hand painted yarn could be saved by the dry cleaner. The knitting needles - they were an unknown. Could they be saved?

I asked A for her expert opinion. I proposed wiping them all down with Clorox wipes but would that take off the varnish and ruin them? A responded that being covered with cat pee had also ruined them so what did I have to lose? Her logic is undeniable. I was either going to ruin a few hundred dollars worth of needles or have a few hundred dollars of ruined needles.

The great experiment began. All needles were wiped down well with the wipes and then wiped again with a damp paper towel then subjected to a sniff test. Test results were inconclusive - they still smelled like lemon from the wipes. So now I am pausing in the typing to go and check for the final results:

A random sampling indicates that wooden needles do indeed defeat cat pee! One or two may have to go but that is a small price to pay for overall success. Blinky's evil plan was only minimally effective. Now I must go love on my evil genius and her associates. They can pee on my needles, eat my socks, and sharpen their claws on my sofa but like a teenager overwhelmed with hormones and in thrall to her first boyfriend, I ignore all of the negative and pretend they love me as much as I love them. And as they cannot talk, I'll never know differently.