Rather than further traumatizing this sensitive soul, the Real Doctor and I felt he would benefit from the more stable environment of a friend's house. Then, when things had died down somewhat, we could reclaim him. Well...he kind of glued himself onto those friends, and manifested no interest in rejoining us. We miss the beastie, but he evinces no nostalgia:
The Real Doctor suggests that we may have alienated Unnamed Cat because we never named him. Well, his new name is "Mr." Besides, I think Unnamed Cat is a fine name, and consistent with pet names in my family.When I was a tyke of three or four years' age, we had a pet kangaroo rat. My memories of the creature are hazy at best, but I think he was a leftover from one of my dad's colleague's research projects (kangaroo rats have some crazy physiology to conserve water). I don't know if I ever saw the critter--kangaroo rats are exclusively nocturnal and I was pretty heavily diurnal at the time. His home (if I recall correctly) was a small brown glass jar inside a large glass carboy, all situated above toddler-eye level, so I couldn't even really see him sleeping. Such an enigma! When my parents had some guests over, one of them asked my brother what the critter's name was. The beast was enough of a non-presence that he had never been given a name, so my brother replied with complete honesty "nothing." That statement of fact became the animal's name, Nothing.
The Real Doctor feels that "Nothing" is not a proper name for an animal, and the names of my family's subsequent pets (e.g. "Stupid" the Carolina Anole, "Fuzzybutt Turdflinger" the chinchilla) also met with her disapproval, as did my suggestions for Unnamed Cat. I have to say, though, that I feel somewhat vindicated by our ex-cat's new name, as well as the name of a pig that we saw at the Douglas County fair a few weeks ago. Bear in mind that this pig was some kid's pride and joy, and did well in competition:
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