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If there is one single reward to owning a pet, it has to be the ability to rename it several thousand times. Afterall, when we are born we get one full name, a middle name, and a last name. Bor-ring. The character of your pet will inspire many unique and clever names that you probably never imagined yourself repeating.

So you think we adopt pets. Wrong. When my cat arrived at the house he selected me. Silly humans, we should know better. Cats select people, people do not select cats. I adopted a stray from the neighborhood or rather he adopted me and my house. A foundling unlike others in the neighborhood, he was a large, gray, tabby with huge, golden, eyes staring up whispering,"Got Milk?". Looking back now; I think he actually said to himself, "Watch me bag this human, I'll be sipping milk and sleeping in a comfortable bed by noon time." And so he did.

What to call the big tabby. The family and I took pitty on the cat, loading him up with kibble, milk, dinner scraps, and god knows what other foods that cats do not normally eat their fill of. We soon discovered his first attribute was that he would howl when hungry. At midnight as I arrived home he began to howl and I whispered, "Quiet you'll wake the house up". I suppose that I was an easily trained owner becuase in three nights, I had discovered or been taught that the only way to quiet the cat at midnight was by providing a treat for him to sink his tongue or teeth into. It was then that I began calling my golden eyed friend, "Roary".

Roary then got his first ride to the vet. A rabies shot that the vet tech won't soon forget. The blood-curdling, low toned, growl, turned a quiet, golden-eyed, tabby into a twelve pound spinning vortex of fur, fangs, whiskers, and claws. As I attempted to control Roary (bring him back into orbit), he roared and let out a hiss. The syringe was empty. So that's why you call him Roary, said the vet tech as she scrubbed her battle wounds. I couldn't tell her the real reason.

Roary-Porry, Poon, Old Man, Mooneyes, Roar Score, Poon-Pon, Goof, and Big-Eye Guy are just some of the names that he has been exposed to over the past five years. Most of the names are dreamt up by his servant humans who for some reason simply have to be cute much to the annoyment of the cat. He has been dressed up, taken for walks, and rousted from periods of slumber for no apparent good reason. Periodic periods of torture (vet trips) have honed his self defense skills outside the house. The vet tech now wears gloves as a sign of respect when handling him.

He has "matured" and now sports at least five new pounds of bulk, resembling the most famous fat cat in recent years, Garfield. At seventeen pounds a degrading new name materialized after an afternoon of dining on kibble, treats, catnip, and male bonding with Dad and his can of tuna. Fatta-watta. What the ? Who you calling fat buster? Like you have room to talk Mr. thirty-pack sporting a spare tire that would fit the truck in the driveway.

If we heard the names that our pets label us with, perhaps we would be much more cautious and respectful when belting out preposterous names for our pets, then again it's too much fun. Maybe not.

Learn more about this author, A. Justin Lines.
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