At 7:05 AM on Sunday, Elijah came crawling into my bedroom.

"Meow," he said.

And so my day began.

"Good morning," I said.

"I'm a cat," he said.

"I can see that."

"Meow, daddy."

"Meow."

"Now I'm going to use the litter box."

I've known Elijah long enough to understand that he wasn't being metaphorical.

"Elijah," I said. "You can pretend to be a cat as long as you want, but stay away from the litter box. It is disgusting and dirty."

"OK," he said, and left. I attempted to drift back into my pillows, but I could already see which general direction this was headed. Somehow, though, the boy always manages to surprise me with specifics.

He brought in his Barrel O' Monkeys toy. He'd emptied out the monkeys. This left a small red plastic barrel.

"I'm going to use this as my litter box," he said.

"Fine, fine," I said groggily. "Go into the living room. I'll be there in a minute."

It was about five minutes until I could raise my creaky Jewish bones from bed. When I arrived in the living room, Elijah was on the couch, looking naughty. He pointed at the barrel.

"Look, daddy," he said.

I looked. The barrel was full to the rim with fresh, warm boy piss.

"Goddamn it, Elijah," I said. "Why did you pee in your Barrel O' Monkeys?"

"I don't know," he said. "I just did."

I picked it up, carried it to the bathroom, and emptied it into the toilet. He followed me.

"You have to flush," I said, because, after all, this was a little too weird to actually punish him for.

He flushed.

I said, "Don't ever do that again."

"OK," he said, "I won't."

I believed him. But as I put the pee-soaked Barrel O' Monkeys on the top rack of the dishwasher, I thought: You know, once is enough.

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