What's in a Name?

Megan had a problem. As a child might suck a thumb to feel secure, to feel safe Megan too liked to suck and made do with the next best thing to a thumb. While relaxing under the warm strokes of her Mistress’s hand, she would slowly swing her tail around, pull it in towards her whiskers with her strange, mittened paws and begin to suckle the tip… never quietly – oh no…slurping like a pig at the trough. Most unladylike.

Of course, following all that loving and tail-sucking, very self-satisfied, she would elegantly stroll about the house, tail wafting gently aloft, its erect elegance marred only by the evident pinched, wet tip which looked more like the working end of a just-dunked water-colour brush. We, Her People couldn’t help but giggle behind her back. Like anyone with a bad habit who can’t quit despite maturing, Megan never managed to kick the tail-sucking habit. And so, she gradually became better known as Baby, given her baby-like penchant for sucking her tail much like a baby sucks its thumb.

Baby was a fine name amongst family but visits to the Vet were a Problem. Mistress couldn’t bring herself to admit this squirrelly, squawky marmalade tabby struggling to be free of her arms was her “baby”. And so, for reference in public, she became Dolly. Dolly, Baby, it was all the same to her. Call her and she’d come running, as responsive to either name as Mistress could wish. And a better companion, Mistress couldn’t ask for. Whether gardening, laundering, cleaning or computing, Dolly was Mistress’s inseparable companion, observing, attending, participating, discussing. Particularly if it was reading the paper, all three stretched out on the living room rug in the morning sun. Nothing was better than discerning exactly which article Mistress would read next then to lie completely across it. Very satisfying. Then discussing with Mistress why Mistress thought she should move and why she very often just wouldn’t.

Discussions, you say? Well yes. Everything had to be discussed for, despite their lack of common tongue, Mistress and Dolly talked about everything and anything: where to put the groceries, whether or not Dolly liked the latest food offered, what Mistress was writing on the computer, and why Dolly shouldn’t sleep on the keyboard, and more often, whether the weather was temperate enough for Dolly to Venture Forth.