Remember the Purina Incident? I perused the claims on the back of a bag of Tidy Cats litter and, not without some difficulty, sent a query about the claims to Ralston Purina.

First, they handed me off to their media team. I received this e-mail:

I came across your e-mail to Tidy Cats and since you mention your "readers" thought it might be appropriate for me to contact you directly. I'm with Tidy Cats and Ralston Purina and handle media relations. What publication do you write for? Thanks for your interest in our products and please let me know if I can be of additional assistance. Thanks. Keith Schopp

They want to know who I write for. I'm under no obligation to tell them, but they are under obligation to back up their claims. I considered various replies, but my attention was diverted by Maine and then by the Eternal Grammar Book. And the Purina issue just sort of drifted away.

Then I got this, from a pklingler@purina.com:

Thank you for taking the time to complete our feedback form at www.tidycats.com. As your inquiry required research, we apologize for the delay in responding.

Research? This should be on a FAQ taped to their desks.

First, we regret to learn of the difficulty you experienced trying to reach our office. Our litter products contain a production date code vs. a "Best If Used By" date code which is an eleven digit number. However, this field on our contact page is not a required field and should allow individuals to leave it blank. Thus, your comments are important and have been shared with our technical area.

In other words, they'll fix the website feedback form. I'm relieved to learn that thousands of Tidy Cats customers will now have a much easier experience reaching the Ralston Purina team.

With regards to your question....all Tidy Cats cat box filler products are extensively tested at our Pet Care Center.

Hee. "Pet Care Center." It sounds all top-secret. The Los Alamos facility for testing cat litter.

Our testing assures us that there is not more than 0.4% very fine dust present in our products, hence the claim of 99.6% dust free. We compare our products with the same clay that has not been manufactured to be dust-free. In addition, we have internal quality control methods in place to verify the amount of airborne dust.

And there's my answer. Sort of. They compare their cat litter with "the same clay that has not been manufactured to be dust-free." Like other cat litters? Or clay scraped off the ground in the desert? Where does Ralston Purina find scientists willing to spend days measuring the amount of fine dust in cat litter? What do you suppose their titles are? "Litter Testing Technician"? "Advanced Litter Analyst"?

We hope this information is helpful to you and your readers. As we are always interested in sharing information with our consumers, please e-mail back the name of the publication you write for.

They sound a little worried now. I imagine a red-faced man in a suit hovering over an innocent IT guy, yelling, "Find that goddamn journalist!"

I'll let them wonder. But I will write back and thank them for their replies. It's only fair. In the meanwhile, I've switched to a flushable paper litter. Cricket doesn't seem to care, but I've noticed it's very dusty...