My Open Letter to the Neighbors Who Refuse to Clean Up After Mr. Whiskers

Open Letter to the Neighbors Who Refuse to Clean Up After Mr. Whiskers,

While I am thoroughly grateful that you are NOT the kind of tenants who like to randomly set fires, or set up a meth labs in your kitchen, or steal gas from my car, I feel as though I must address an issue that has been bothering me for some time -- namely the cat feces I step in regularly deposited at our garage door. It seems that your cat Mr. Whiskers, who likes to keep a low profile as the outdoor guardian of the trashcans, is now using our garage door as his litter box.

Now I am all for believing the world is one's oyster, or even a stage, but since I don't shit on seafood or theaters, I'd like to ask that Mr. Whiskers stop defecating in the one area we all share.

I left rather whimsical notes asking you to start picking up his morning presents complete with an impressive portrait of Mr. Whiskers dancing in his litter box waving a white flag of surrender. I taped it to your car and front door. Did you see them? Because the day after, I saw that Mr. Whiskers left another odorous present by the garage door. In fact, his deposits are getting larger in quantity, and smellier I might add. Are you perchance feeding your feline Indian food?

Since you may have missed my notes, I also drew a series of signs featuring famous cartoon cats you might recognize, asking you to put a litter box by your door, or to keep your cat inside for a wacky change of pace. I've posted them in the exact area where Mr. Whiskers likes to have his morning bowel movement. If anything, perhaps it will sink into his little brain that even his role models wouldn't use our garage door as a latrine.

Case in point Azrael chased Smurfs, but he never crapped all over Gargamel's hut. Garfield ate so much lasagna that explosive diarrhea must have been the norm, but he at least kept his leakage contained inside the litter box. I figure the dapper Snagglepuss was most likely toilet trained. And when you think about it you'd never see the Thundercats take a dump in a garage. Heck, even Stimpy loved spending time in his box so much that he wrote poems about Gritty Kitty litter.

So please take the advice of the cartoon kitties I took so many hours to draw and shade, so that I no longer track in Mr. Whiskers' colon creations all over my apartment and car. Myself and Cheetara sure would be thankful.

Sincerely,
Girl Upstairs

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I posted my letter on Craig's List as well here. Originally submitted (but rejected) to McSweeney's Open Letters section.