Did you hear about kitty litter in schools for students who identify as cats?

Listening to Kathy Barnette fill in for Dawn Stensland on WPHT-1210/AM one day last week, I nearly drove off the road when I heard her share an anecdote about public education and kitty litter boxes.

What she said — and I am paraphrasing — was that a school across from her had installed litter boxes for students who identify as cats.

Now, in normal times one would think this was the product of the Onion or Babylon Bee, two popular satire sites. But in the 21st Century, when “ze” becomes a personal pronoun, “women” with penises get to compete in women’s sports, schools put tampons in boys’ bathrooms, and there are more gender selections than Heinz has varieties, you can’t be sure.

You may remember in the last election cycle, Barnette was a conservative Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate who did extremely well, and got 25% of the vote, but was edged out by celebrity  Mehmet Oz,  who got beaten by John Fetterman.

During the campaign, I liked listening to Barnette, a down-to-earth, folksy Black woman with both a master’s degree, and 10 years of service in the U.S. Army. She’s mouthy, and has a way of connecting with people.

On the day I listened in, she was grousing that the Pennsylvania GOP doesn’t seek her advice, given how well she did with shoestring financing of her campaign.

Anyway, the litter box comment caught my ear and I emailed her through her website, but didn’t hear back. I then got someone at WPHT to give me her cell phone number.

I caught her on a commercial break, and she told me she did say that, and that the litter boxes were set up in more than one school and she would text me the verifying information.

That was on Wednesday, and I’m thinking, this would make a great column.

It would almost write itself.

Too good to be true.

But then. . . No text from Barnette. No email. No verification. No response to a text and a voicemail left with her on Thursday.

I called again on Friday, saying I would love to have her verify what she said on air, because it would make a terrific story. I reminded her she said the cat litter has been added by a school near her.

But the brash, extroverted politician went silent.

What did not go silent was the internet, where I found a number of posts about the litter box hoax, such as this lengthy report from NBC News. 

My Friday afternoon voicemail to Barnette said I had learned this was a hoax, and asked if her listeners deserve an apology for deceiving them with, well, fake news.

Anyone can make a mistake, and NBC names the many Republicans who pushed the story. 

But when Barnette told me it had happened in a school near her, and offered to prove it, she personalized the hoax, and put her fingerprints on it. She now owns it.

The earliest mention of the hoax found by NBC was a September 2022 question asked by Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen: “Why do we have litter boxes in some of the school districts so kids can pee in them, because they identify as a furry?”

A furry, if you must know, is a person who enjoys dressing up like an animal, either in person, or online. Here is a one-minute video explanation.

But furries do not require litter boxes, several of them told NBC.

Furries seem to be a relatively innocuous subculture that has been around since the 1980’s.

About a week after Jensen’s question, well-known Trump acolyte, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, perhaps best-known for digitally pleasuring her boyfriend in a movie theater, warned that educators “are putting litter boxes in schools for people who identify as cats.”

So where do these crazy urban legends start?

Locally, the most infamous was the one concerning then-CBS3 anchor Jerry Penacoli and a gerbil. It was false, and I won’t spread it further. Google if you want more detail.

In the case of kitty litter, NBC traced its origin to a 2017 decision by Colorado’s Jefferson County school district — where Columbine is located — to stock classrooms with small amounts of kitty litter, as part of a “go bucket” emergency plan. The buckets, to be used in the event of a shooting-related lockdown, also contain candy for diabetic students, flashlights, and wet wipes.

Mystery solved.

Time for Kathy Barnette to own up.