Already I’ve discovered, you’ve got to have deep pockets when you own a cat. Aside from the upfront money to the RSPCA, there’s the litter, litter box, food, necklace, tag, box hire and the exorbitant cost of naming the cat.
Although I suspect I got diddled on the naming fee.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were getting a cat?” asked Master22 tonight when he phoned from Brisbane. He sounded a bit put out.
As did Miss19 in her Facebook message from where she’s living in Perth: I thought you hated cats? I wanted one for 18 years and wasn’t allowed one.
I had some explaining to do.
“We didn’t decide we were getting one until yesterday,” I told them.
“That’s heaps of time to have let us know,” said Master22.
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. “But I was sort of hoping it wasn’t going to happen.”
But it did, and now we have a cat.
This cat was chosen, I’m gathering from the brief summary of Tracey’s trip to the RSPCA, because it was one of a litter of seven found deserted in a box in a local park. The thing to pick out of that sentence is the number of kittens in the litter – seven. Same number of kids we have. It was meant to be.
First order of the day, after the meet and greet with the kids, was to name our newest family member.
“I don’t care what you call it,” I told my family, and my wife scoffed.
I said it with the very best of intentions, but she has a point. I named all of our kids. I mean, I included her in the process, but she was more of a sounding board than a collaborator.
I posted on Facebook for ideas and told the kids to start thinking. In no time at all we had a huge list. Tiger. Boots. Buttons. Schrodinger. DC. Brad (Kitt). Kitty Kat. Pussy. Stevens. To be honest, I was the only one in the family interested in Schrodinger or Stevens – either of which would have been acceptable. And I was determined to avoid Kitty Kat or Pussy.
So we needed to come up with something else. And by we I mean me.
Then I read a name suggestion someone put up on the Facebook page – Evil – which got me thinking. And what I was thinking, specifically, was this cat will be called Minion! (You can see the direct correlation there, right?)
I mentioned the name in passing and only Master9 showed any interest. This was going to take wit, cunning and money.
Three dollars, to be precise, to bring Miss10 onside and have her put aside the name Kitty Kat. I started at $2 but she haggled.
Miss2 I claimed by handing her a choc chip cookie and saying, “Do you want a cat named Minion and a biscuit?” and she readily agreed.
“Who’s idea was Minion?” asked Master9 at this point.
“Yours,” I told him. “And it’s brilliant. Now get in there and start calling it Minion so the others can get used to it.”
That made four of us.
But I was up against Pussy from Miss4 and Miss7. I decided to use my daddy voice.
“The cat’s name is Minion,” I told them in a’ that’s that’ sort of tone. They disagreed, so I went with, “Think how cool it will be to have your very own Minion who’ll do whatever you tell it.”
They’ve never had a cat. They don’t know any better. They were in.
One to go. The hardest one. In gaming terms, this was the Boss at the end of the level. I couldn’t use wit because she has more of that than me. I couldn’t use money, because she already has all mine. My daddy voice? Her mummy voice can trump that in a bellow.
Cunning it was. I decided to use my well known dislike of the idea of having a feline to call my own.
“You know,” I said to my wife. “I could really learn to love a cat named Minion.”
Tracey had been watching me work my campaign trail with mock amusement and a lot of head shaking.
“I couldn’t,” she told me. “But I’ll call it Min for short, so I guess that’ll do.”
So that’s it! The family has unanimously agreed to call our new family member Minion.
Or Min for short.
Or, for more formal occasions, his full name of Minion ‘The Kitty Kat’ Devereaux.
Which reminds me, I’ve going to demand a dollar back in the morning.
Our ’BIG FAMILY little income’ Facebook Page
’Raising a family on little more than laughs.’
