I recently returned from a trip to New York City, where long before Starbucks ruled every street corner, there were neighborhood coffee shops with unbranded names like Viand and Three Guys.
When I worked in New York, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I lived a few blocks away from Three Guys on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. The burly guys who manned the front counter every morning would have laughed had I ordered a “tall soy no-water chai” for my wake-up drink of choice. Whaa? My light coffee kept me going then, and cats were nowhere in sight.
Now, my three guys go by the name of Lucius, the “little man”; Linus, the “wrestling man”; and T.J., the “wiggle man.” Let me explain.
When Lucius became our first cat, my husband instructed him to help look after me, to be the little man of the house at all hours. When Linus joined the feline crew, he made his mark as the cat who could not stop wrestling with the others. The harder they pounced, the more he enjoyed the tackles. I need to make a recording of his squeals of delight. Before we moved T.J. inside and into the garage apartment, he loved to recline in the driveway and wiggle his body to get my attention. T.J. has not set his paws outdoors in seven years, but you can’t keep a wiggle man from shaking his booty behind closed doors.
There are three other guys at Catland—Leo, L.B., and Alvar—but I have yet to give them nicknames that incorporate the word “man.” In fact, now that I think about it, Leo might not appreciate being called Sweet Potato, but “orange man” sounds even stranger to this Cat Lady’s ear.
Query of the Day: How many guys live with you at home?
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Love your blog! There are three guys in our home--well, three residents, but we often have a foster man here too. We have Alexander who loved to play with those pony tail wraps (Scuncis) when he was a kitten so we nicknamed him Scrunchi, which has become "Scrunch-man". Then there's Tucker, our tuxedo cat who is "T-man" and Buck our lynx point Siamese with an attitude who is just Buckskin Butthead...we couldn't incorporate the "man" into his name.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to know I'm not alone with the "man" reference!