Ishmael was taken.  Apparently, gender inappropriate, too…so, call me Myrtle.

In the grand scheme of global population, the total number (23, at last count) of people who may opt to take offense to this violation of election protocols is insignificant.  However, “neurotic” doesn’t fully encapsulate the behavioral tide that my owner swims against and frequently is swept away by.  Sadly, poor recently adopted me and my command of English doesn’t really allow me to clarify further.  give me a break, I’m a cat.

Nor do I really care to…again, I’m a cat.  Your human judgments matter not.  I am the higher power everyone’s been talking about.

Anyway, my human seems disproportionately concerned about these 23 simian knock-offs and sat me down to explain his reasoning to me.

Sorry…he threw my catnip carrot across the floor after finding it in the produce drawer of the fridge.  I had to chase it, which resulted in my skidding into some unframed art he just keeps sitting around, leaned against the wall.  I’m back now.

Sidebar:  cats love carrots.  Not.  @madonna:  LOL

Anyway, the whole thing started with my shelter name:  Lizzy.  Apparently, that wouldn’t fly since his sister’s name is Beth, short for Elizabeth.  He confided in me that he occasionally replaces her name with Betsy in his mind.  When he’s feeling particularly frisky – shut up – he rifs Lizardbreath from her full given name of Elizabeth mixed with his childhood speech impediment.  If you think that’s cute, you should see how cute he is when he doesn’t think he sounds gay.  Ermagherd.

ROFLMWO (rolling on the floor, laughing my whiskers off).

So, Lizzy was out.  Like I care.  I answer to no man.  Quite literally.

So, he spends two days sourcing name candidates.  This guy needs a hobby.

Oooh!  The frizzy, jingly ball!  BRB.

God.  If you don’t have one of those, I highly recommend it.  They are quite…stimulating.

Ok, where was I?  Oh, yeah…he narrows the candidates down to 10 choices.  For people names.  He’s still occasionally yelling “Penguin” or “Broomstick” at me to see how I respond.  Jesus, I hope this clown remembers to buy food.  For me, anyway.  The 10 choices are:

Cleo

Ruth

Myrtle

Joan

Hedda

Sugar Pie

Gayle

Bobbie Christina

Amelie

Gracie

Seriously, what was the vetting process on these names?  Ugh.  I said “vet”.  <shudder>

Since this guy really seems to love the sound of his own outer monologue, I actually know the vetting process:

Cleo – I look, somehow, Egyptian.  His best friend, a Fox of some sort keeps laughing ans saying it’s short for Cleocatra.  Right.  All this white fur.

Ruth – Biblical.  From him.  Anyway, if he thinks he can generate loyalty from me in any way other than regular feedings and occasional and likely tragically ending petting…well, god bless him.  “Wither thou goest, I shall goest”?  Right.  I’ll eat your face if you don’t feed me.

Myrtle – Ok, like I said earlier, this is the winner, and I’m kind of glad.  It’s for two reasons, one of which is as dopey as I’ve come to expect of this guy: I’m a Torby – a Tortoise Shell colored Tabby – I’ll get to this later.  The other is that this is his grandma’s middle name.  She smoked is what I know about her after he freaked out when I almost catted one of her ashtrays off a shelf.  I could go for a cig right about meow.  You holding?

Joan – Something about talk shows?  I’m just glad it wasn’t historical.  I could really use a light, but I’d rather not be burned at the stake.

Sugar Pie – Seriously.  This queen.  It’s an Anna Nicole Smith reference.  I’ll not be responsible for my actions if this dark horse option becomes a contender.

Hedda – More weird talk show shit.  Old school.

Gayle – Shocker, talk show stuff.  You’d actually be surprised at how little this guy turns on his TV.  Anyway, I hope this doesn’t win, since Gayle was the sidekick in this scenario.  Have you met cats?  Sidekick to no one.

Bobbie Christina – He’s going to hell.  Way too soon.  Anyway, if you’re going to go, go big.  I’m a Dolly, period.  Although, based on his other relationships, I get his affinity with this name.  Beaten (how very Bobby Brown!); Died On (very Whitney and Bobby Christina; also, totally my exit strategy, we cats don’t live that long!); Cheated On (by a guy who insisted dogs were the ultimate pet…how humiliating and still very Bobby Brown); Peter Panned (although this guy seems like good people – as far as humans go – since he liked cats!).

Amelie – Something about a high school Spanish class crush and a french film.  I don’t even care.

Gracie – Just no.  There is no acceptable reason.

Jesus.  He just yelled “Cork” and I’m not even sure he’s talking to me.  I hope it’s not another name option.  Perhaps it was a particularly violent hiccup.  We seem to have settled right in to what he wanted in the first place.

But, let’s discuss those polling results, shall we?  First of all, apparently, there were over 100 responses…which seems like a lot of people investing in a cat name.  Well, now that I type it out, I am a cat, I think I could reasonably expect over 100% polling action with several people casting multiple votes.

Just over 75 of those responses seemed capable of following simple instructions and voting for one of the ten choices.  The rest pulled out the democracy card and wrote in options, which is fine, but I can’t imagine what they thought would happen…a sea change of opinion that resulted in 75 other people all recanting their vote and throwing their support behind their suggestion?  Thank god no one suggested Norma Rae.

Anyway:

Cleo – 37% of the motherfucking vote!

Ruth – 5% of the vote…if we round up.

Myrtle – 16%

Joan – 8%, Sorry Joan, No Cats Named Joan…EVER!

Sugar Pie – <2% of the vote.

Hedda – 5%…again, brought to you by generous rounding.

Gayle – 5%, but a better 5% than Hedda or Ruth, so there’s that.  Are you really surprised, Gayle?  No.  No, you aren’t.

Bobbie Christina – 8%…too soon, but I do like these obviously un-neutered friends.  Call me.  RAWR.

Amelie – 5%, that’s so precious for such a pretentious name.  He can’t pull off that type of gay.  Have you seen him dress?  Totally jeans and tee shirt.  All.  The.  Time.  I’m a fucking adorable, snub tailed Torby with a size 00 figure after a surprise litter of five at 23 months of age.  All I’m saying is that I could pull off being named Carl but I’m glad Amelie bombed in the polls.

Gracie – 19% and I really need to work on my Jedi mind tricks.  This option should never have happened.  He throws my carrot and gives me bonito whenever I want, though, so there is that.

So, this clown’s poor best friend suggested Cleo, which for some reason…he just did not like.  Oh, yeah…the dead grandma trump card.  Ok, whatever…a friend told him that names that end in O just sound like “No!” to pets, so to go with “Clea”.  Luckily, he hates the actress Clea Duvall, so that was a non-starter.  He’s also super cool because he not only scoops my poop and feeds me, but is really mentally flexible.  Kinda.  Whatever, he got there.

Watching him validate his rejection of Cleo was impressive.  Mostly, because he knew it was incumbent upon him to go with the popular vote.  He laid on the couch for a while and talked it out.

I helped by jumping on his chest and showing him my butt.

The long and short of it came down to the Bell Curve.

He decided to throw out the best and worse performers, which obviously took out Cleo.  Poor Sugar Pie – blessedly – joined kept it company in the trash heap.

That left Gracie as the winner of the popular vote.  I threw myself at the French Doors, trying desperately to get away from that eventuality.  My Main-Poop-Scooper seemed to pick up on my distress and absolute opposition to this name and decided that in addition to honoring his dead grandmother – because she’s ethereally around to appreciate that gesture – he would tip his frustrated author hat to the late, great Theodor Geisel…aka: Dr Seuss and his pinnacle of Turtle literature, Yertl the Turtle – hey, turtle literature is surely an emerging trend.  And a stretch.  Except that I’m a Tabby/Tortoise Shell mix…a Torby.  Yertl was a turtle and my markings are classes tortoise.  Told you I would explain that later.  Who can defy that obviously pickled and only-slightly-post-pre-school logic?

It had to be Myrtle.

The important thing is:  we both got what we wanted.

For me that meant not naming me Gracie.  For him, even though he didn’t likely realize it, it meant not doing what popular vote told him to do.  This guy:  he’s like the electoral college.

Or likes college students.  I’ll leave that blog to him or to your gentle judgments, anyway.

Now, if you’ll forgive me, my paws are tired and I really feel like I need to go drag my ass across his pillows before he goes to sleep.  I really don’t know why.

All the best, and sorry in advance for all the pix of me that are undoubtedly heading your way!

Myrtle