My Father's beloved chair and cat urine

I know as I write this, I can think of two readers, both male, on different continents who will tell me this is why dogs rule over cats.


For the record, I would have a dog, but since I have been 22 I have lived in apartments which did not allow dogs. Thus, Susan the cat lover was born.

For the record, I also applied for a psychiatric helper dog. No word yet.



Now here is the problem I am facing. I have a chair in my living room that belonged to my father when he was first married to my mother. You know the kind of chair, it's like Archie Bunker's, belonging to the patriarch of the family, and all those who want to sit on it who aren't the patriarch tremble before it, because their bottoms are not worthy for it's glory and leather. When I was a toddler, my father used to sit on the chair, reading the New York Times, and I would sit on his lap, tugging the paper, to get huggies from him.

Eventually, over the course of my parent's marriage, the chair got upgraded 3 times, so when I moved into my current apartment I inherited the first incarnation of said chair. I put a blanket on it, and made it the cat's chair.

Fine. A month or so ago, the cat decided to urinate on the blanket. I washed the blanket several times, and washed down the chair with soap, water, Nature's Miracle and Fabreeze. All fine.

But the smell still lingers. I keep spraying it with Fabreeze, but it's driving me batty.

My mom and dad said it't time to retire said chair to the dumpster. It's over a half century old. But as for me- who has collected furniture from a relative who brought it over from Europe via Ellis Island -I don't like to throw things out.

Any help would be appreciated, and if the chair goes, I will need a few strong men to lift the chair into the dumpster, I will pay back with beer, cokes and pizza.