ecreegan

Stray thoughts on unclogging my CatGenie so that it can drain into my toilet:

Yay! I have triumphed over an animate nonsentient object!
I love not emptying litter boxes, but at least they're easy bits of technology and rarely go wrong.
The CatGenie is remarkably easy to take apart and put back together. I'm nervous about the number of moving parts in it - complicated things are more prone to go wrong - but it really is well-designed.
This problem had nothing to do with the number of moving parts and little to do with the CatGenie's design, except for the fundamental issue of breaking up solid waste and flushing it into the toilet. It's not Pet Novation's fault that one of my cats likes to eat plastic, or that plastic will clog drains.
The Cat Genie really should have a 'cancel cycle' option so that I don't have to wait until it's done before trying it from scratch.
I'd've gotten it done in half the time if I hadn't stopped at the first two plastic clogs (plus three pieces of loose plastic) and had kept looking harder, finding the remaining two pieces of plastic in the machinery.
Between one thing and another, I put in an actual evening's work.
I feel a lot more comfortable about the prospect of needing to unclog the CatGenie again.
This could have been so much worse if the CatGenie had run and the clog had been discovered just half an hour later - I never really got to the cranky and brainfried stage.
This would have been better if it had happened when the CatGenie support line was on call (9am-10pm ET) but I'm rarely at home then.
People have made YouTube videos illustrating how to do various maintenance on the CatGenie -- and the CatGenie has a helpful support line and a PDF manual that's good as such things go. That's an interesting sociological fact, but I'm realy not sure what it means.
I'm a total gadget geek. Actually, the previous paragraph suggests that I'm just a total geek.
Well, if I'm going to go buy machinery that's likely to have minor things go wrong while it's doing something disgusting, I'd better be able to do minor repairs without getting too grossed out.
It's late and I'm actually tired. Goodnight, all.