Huffman Coding

We seem to have urine problem with cats. Dino, as some longtime readers may recall, was returned to humane society because he peed outside his litter box.

Cooper, our newest cat, peed on the futon in the basement a few weeks ago. We chalked it up to being locked down there away from his litter box, but weren’t sure exactly why.

Well tonight, my sister and her family are coming into town for the parade and fireworks. I offered our house for them to stay overnight and in the interest of full disclosure, I did mention that they would be welcome to use the futon, but that it had been marked by our feline, so they might want to make alternate sleeping plans.

This weekend my wife, wanting to be a good host, instructed me to get a brand new futon mattress for our relatives. We know of no way to get the smell out of the old one, so it made sense. Chris wanted me to get a nicer inner-spring one in the process.

After stopping a four stores, I found a good Sealy one yesterday and brought it home in our hollowed out minivan and lugged it down to the basement by myself. Tad more expensive than I would like, but whatever.

This morning Chris called my at work screaking into phone. The cat had peed on the new, expensive futon mattress, less than 24 hours after we bought it.

My sister’s family will be here in a few hours.