MY LAST CAT-THEMED POST

I'm swearing them off for a while, I promise. But I thought everyone should know, before I do, that kitty finally has a name.

Smidgey. As in a little smidgen of a cat. She's a small, midget-y spec of feline charm. It seems appropriate; it's the first name that really fits her to a tee. And it passes the "makin' copies" test... You remember the early-90's SNL character where Rob Schneider drove all of his co-workers crazy with his absurd litany of nicknames for anybody unfortunate enough to be using the copy machine? Smidgemeister... Smidgerini... The Smidgester... Smidge-o-rama... You get it. See, I need to be able to spin my pet's names into ridiculous variations, ad nauseum. But more importantly, Smidgey is a unisex name. Because I seem to be noticing that "she" has a couple of puffy little smidgies on her backside, just beneath her tail.

Yep. I think she has balls.

I'm not sure. I gave it a good grope and I still can't tell. And I asked Mark to check it out too, and well, he's just in denial. We both thought she was (and so wanted her to be) a girl. Frankly, I'm just not in to keeping a male cat in the house, because I'm scared to death of "spraying". Yuck. So the good news for Smidgey, if she has little-boy-naughty-bits, is that she will get to keep her claws. She will need them when she becomes an outdoor tom. She probably won't be keeping her naughty-bits... but at least she can let out her sexual frustrations by clawing things to bits.

I read that you can tell boy kittens from girl kittens, because little boys look like a colon ( : ) whereas little girls look like a semi-colon ( ; ). Punctuation for genitalia? Ya'll, that's just straight up confusing... ( ! ) I think the vet will just have to settle this, once and for all. And in the meantime, Smidgey's just free to be Smidgey... furry little backside-smidgies and all.