When it comes to cat shopping, my method is pretty simple: let the cat pick you.
And that’s just how it happened when we visited “Mary’s Kitty Korner” in Granby this weekend. The nanosecond my boy sat down, this black and white vixen was on him like a hooker in a cheap hotel, paws kneading, tail swishing, as she purred herself a home right there in his lap. And all in that moment, the decision was rendered. It was this cat’s lucky day, along with her twin, although fluffier and even flirtier, sister.
And so, picking out the cats was easy. Figuring out what to call them was the hard part.
The shelter had pre-assigned them a pair of unfortunate names already: Sissy and Prissy. Tyler, who is resistant to any iota of change, quickly adopted their names right along with them.
“Here, Sissy! Here, Prissy!” he coaxed them from their carriers after we’d endured a meowing cacophony all the way home.
“Hey Tyler, that reminds me,” I said. “What do you want to call them?”
“They already have names,” he shrugged as the cats slinked out of their carriers, carefully sniffing every square inch of the house and ramming themselves against every corner.
“Yeah, about that. Of all the qualities I can’t stand in a person, ‘sissy’ and ‘prissy’ are at the top of the list, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the next fifteen years calling them that.” (Well, I might have said that last part in my head. Mostly because I didn’t want to explain where the cats would be fifteen years from now.)
“I don’t want to,” Tyler simply said.
“The thing is, when you’re sixteen, I’m betting you’re not going to want to tell your friends from the football team that you have two cats named ‘Sissy’ and ‘Prissy.’ You see, I’m planning for your future here. Let’s call them something else.”
“Like what?” he asked, voice full of reservation.
“How about Bessie and Clarabell?” I pitched. “Get it? They’re black and white, so we should name them after cows. Remember, Clarabell is the cow in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. What do you think?”
One right after the other, the cats discovered the dogs, gated up and whimpering like they would implode right there in the mudroom, staring at them like they were furry little hors d’oeuvres. The cats merged in a simultaneous hiss and ran for cover. Before he had the chance to answer my question, Tyler leapt up and bolted after them.
“Come back, Sissy! Here, Prissy!”
He was at it for the rest of the day, peering under beds and bureaus, inspecting dark closets with a flashlight. “Come on out, Sissy! Come out, Prissy!”
My boy is stubborn. He wasn’t going to budge. My only choice was to compromise.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you Cecelia C. Cat and Priscilla B. Puss (aka, Sissy and Prissy).
As for Tyler’s future football teammates, Simsbury Trojans 2032, be gentle. At least our cats aren’t named after condoms.