A Rose by any Other Name; would smell like tuna and liver

“Mr. Mallory would you like a cat?” sang the cheerleader.
I tried to figure out an excuse or a way to stall.

“Um, let me ask my wife,” I told the cheerleader. Hoping the answer would be no.
There was that cat in California, ‘Bob’ had been his name. He was a sleep-robber. Either he slept on your face or he opened and shut the cabinet doors on the vanity in the bedroom all night long.

Then there were the ‘Three Stooges.’ My mother-in-law Marge found at the bank. They were mutants. They all had six or seven fingers on each paw. Marge and Allan thought our girls might like them, so last winter we let them live in our back porch. Three kittens can really make a place stink! They also clawed deep gouges into our kitchen door. By spring I was more then ready to introduce them to the farm.

I suppose I should feel guilty. Only one of the three survived another year. I have no idea whether he’s ‘Larry, Moe, or Curly.’ He was renamed ‘Spot’ after my nephews thought he’d look better in John Deere green.

Bethany thought a cat was a good idea, so negotiations began.

“There’s five, would you like a fluffy long haired one or a short haired one?” asked the cheerleader.

“Short,” I HATE having animal hair all over the place.

“Okay, you’ll get ‘Spot.’ We call him that because he’s all white except for one spot. At least I think he’s a he. They’re still pretty small” she said.

Her mother brought a kitten to school one Friday in a Dr. Pepper box. “We hated to break up the family,” she told me. “The other four all went to the same home.”

Holy Kitty Litter! I thought to myself.

This wasn’t ‘Spot.’ Too fluffy. Not all white. This kitten was generic. The quintessential kitten; medium length hair, orange-ish areas, whitish areas. Not my personal aesthetic. I like a more low key design in my cats. Tabby, gray, brown, black. Cest’ la vie, it was free.

But if this wasn’t ‘Spot,’ we would have to name it.

There’s that practice of naming something after the person who gave it to you. Bethany’s first car was named ‘Lola.’ The cat’s name would be ‘Randi,’ after the cheerleader. If it turns out to be a boy, then it would be ‘Randy.’ No problem.

I don’t know. What would people think if I name a pet after a student? Is that inappropriate? More importantly, shouldn’t my daughters get to name it? Uh oh, I worried, I bet Grace (our 4 year old) will want to call it ‘Nemo,’ after the two fish that we killed.

“Sweetheart, have you thought about what you’d like to name you new kitty?” I asked my daughter one afternoon out on the farm.

“Hmm, not yet. Me still thinking,” was her first reply.

“I think ‘Ginger’ is a good name for a cat” offered Great-Grandma Laura Langholdt.

“But Gram, it’s a boy,” I protested, “Ginger is such a girl’s name!” (By now the cat’s gender had been determined).

“I like ‘Cinnamon,’” suggested Marge.

I sighed. I did not want any pet of mine named after potpourri. What would they suggest next, ‘Nutmeg?’

“Hey Grace, how about just calling him ‘Cat?’” I said.

“NO, You TEASING me. You SILLY!” she replied.
My sister-in-law Sheri liked the idea of ‘Bob’ in honor of the COU Bobcats. Ellen (our 2 year old) started dancing around the kitchen saying “Bob…Bob.” It would have been easy for her to say. She likes Bob the Builder, SpongeBob Squarepants, and Bob the tomato from Veggietales. Alas, Sheri didn’t know about California Bob, who died tragically of kitty cancer.

“Grace, have you decided on a name yet?”

“Mmmm,’ Larry Boy?’” after Bob the tomato’s partner, Larry the cucumber.

“Oh, gee, honey, um, I don’t know…” at least it wasn’t ‘Nemo,’ or ‘Spiderman.’

“If ‘Ginger’ is too sissy for you, why not something more manly like ‘Butch’, or ‘Prince,’ or ‘King’?” said Bethany sarcastically.

“Geez, Beth, it’s a cat, those are all dog names” I countered, “Wait a minute, ‘King?’ how about ‘Mufasa’ from the Lion King.” Grace’s cousin Login in Sioux Falls has a can named ‘Simba.’

“Grace, how about Mufasa?” I offered, almost as a last resort.

“Mmmm. No. No Moofawsha. Mmmm, ‘Ting!’” she announced gleefully.

“Ting?” I asked. I have another cheerleader from Taiwan who’s name is ‘Ting Hu.’ Kids at school say “Ting Who? Ting HU!”

“No, not ‘Ting’, ‘TING!” Grace said, frustrated that we still can’t understand her all of the time.

“Oh, ‘King!’” I translated.

“Yes, ‘Ting.” She said.

Ellen immediately started dancing around singing “King, King, King.”

It’s amazing how much less one cat makes a place stink then three.

If you remember back a few columns, Grace does understand that girls can be Queen but not King but Queens are important and powerful and she’s Okay with it.

Poor King gets drug around by Ellen an awful lot, but Grace treats him like royalty. If by that you mean he gets treated like a Pretty Princess Barbie®.