cat
My family have only ever had cats. When I was little we had Benny and Gracie, but Gracie buggered off to a neighbour when my bru was born, and Benny eventually corked it at a ripe 18 years.

So to replace him, we got this manic tabby we rescued from an animal hospital (we went to the wrong building, and the place 'forgot' to inform us he could have died of the flu as soon as we got him home). He got better, and was the greatest cat in the world. But we didn't know what to name him.

He would sit in the garden and birds would dance round him and he sat serenely, so my parents joked Jesus or Francis.
He had the largest testicles you have EVER seen on a cat that small. For a while he was Nads or Big Balls.
In the end, we settled for something we could say to the locals ("have you found Jesus?" or "where is Big Balls"), and went for Harley, due to his purr you could hear a block away.

When his time was up (he thought all humans were wonderful, and they could never harm him, so he rolled around in the road a lot...), we got two kittens.

One was quiet, nervous and more than a bit stupid. He was totally my brother's though, and in a fairly futile attempt to give his cat an edge, named it Bobafet. Unsurprisingly, he became known as Bob, and would bring in elastic bands as trophies. Poor lad eventually went the way of Harley.

The other one kept trying to escape in the most spectacular ways. He was named Mac. (we dropped the 'queen' as it doesn't quite work) He still rocks, and this morning brought in a raven and a magpie. He even skinned a bird once (not eaten, just skin with feathers attached over *there* and skinned fleshy body over *there* - vet has no idea how he did this) so for a while he was known as Buffalo.

These days, he actually responds to Shithead. Which is appropriate, as he is currently sitting on my keyboard and chewing my head.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 20:54, Reply)