Fat Cat Nicknames
I once was a skinny, pale and shy boy living in Mississippi who walked a little funny (or so they said). And for some reason I have always been a magnet for nicknames. Perhaps a single name (and a generic name at that) just isn't enough to communicate the depth and complexity of who I really am. Or maybe I'm just funny looking and easy to poke fun at. Either way, folks have branded me Ghost, Stick, Shithead, Brick, Sandman, Sanders, Marky, the Spark and many others. Some have stuck, some have been replaced and some have hurt my feelings but I can't deny the impact they have had on how I approach the names of others.
I think this might be the reason I subconsciously use multiple names for people and animals. When I was a kid I had a cat named Muffin (well, actually it was Muffin 2) that I always casually referred to as Bud. I have branded my nephews Little Man or Dude. I've even taken to calling my own mother D at times. I guess being called a lot of names makes a person give out a lot of names.
With that in mind, for the first time ever I offer an annotated exploration of each of my cat Chrissy's nicknames.
the basics
Pooh
Poohbear
Poohbearo
Boo
Boobear
Booberry
she's overweight
Fat Cat (thanks to our Korean landlord)
Flabby Tabby
Heavy P
she has a big butt
Rump
Pooter
she is cute
Cutey Booty
her sleeping posture
Sleepy
Bunny
her ability to act as furniture
Poolow
her angry disposition
Baroness von Crankpants
Señorita Crankpants
Meany Queeny
Furious Orange
Fascist Clay
her no-nonsense attitude
Chrissy Chrisdemeanor
Chrissy E.
her hairball removal technique
Pukesy McSpew
Baroness von Upchuck
as a family and bed divider
Mighty Chrississippi
Continental Poovide
the exotic
El Gatto
Human nicknames can be a funny thing. Once at a job they handed out those mottled black and white notebooks to everyone...the kind that have the square on the front where you write your name and class when you're in grade school.
I thought it would be funny to fill in this information, so I went with "Little Bobby Holling" and "'s Class." Someone saw it and of course went with the nickname.
My response was "well, if I knew it was easy to create a nickname, I would have chosen something cool, like 'Phat Daddy B'." And of course, that stuck, and I still get that to this day from a couple of old colleagues.
On the cat nickname theme...I have a friend who never named his cat. I wonder if that's bad karma or something.
My brother's name is Edgar. When we were growing up, my dad was a prison warden and we got to know several of the inmates who did our yardwork, etc., since we lived in a house on the property for a few years. This one guy couldn't pronounce my brother's name, so he called him what sounded like "Arika". To this day, one of my brother's nicknames is Arika.
(Yes. I've got lots of strange stories like that.)
Ann, it's all beginning to make sense. You grew up in a prison and carroused with inmates. Looking forward to hearing more stories about that including other 'colorful' nicknames.
Holling, if a horse with no name is good enough for America, than a cat with no name should be fine.