Two doors down from us there is a rental property, or as I like to say, “People come and go so quickly there.”
One of the groups that quickly went from said rental property left behind five (count ‘em) five cats, who immediately began to starve. I started feeding them. I had to feed them because 1) they were starving and 2) they started ripping holes in my window screens, trying to get into my house so they could eat my soft parts while I slept. I was scared.
We have a cat. She came with our house. We call her Condi, and she is known around here as the “good” kitty. She does not give birth to flesh eating offspring. The five flesh eating abandoned cats are referred to as the “bad” kitties.
It’s a fairly simple set up: Condi, good kitty; all other cats, bad.
When Conner was two years old, he became the self-appointed “bad kitty” spotter. He took a lot of pride in his work. They could run, but they couldn’t hide. The problem is that Conner couldn’t say things good so much.
When he spotted a flesh eater, lurking in the hedges, he would shout at the top of his lungs, “Bad titty! Bad titty. YaYa, bad titty!” Luckily we live in the country and our neighbors have moved.
Conner’s brand new brother, at the time, was named Kipling, but if you asked Conner he would tell you that the baby’s name was Dip.
While cutely troublesome, these examples do not even begin to compare to our oldest granddaughter’s struggles in learning English. Zoe, as small girl, was a real frog lover. Unfortunately, when she would spot a frog, sense a frog’s nearness, or locate the plush version of a frog in a store she would scream at the top of her adorable potty mouthed toddler lungs, “F- - -!” A word that rhymes with luck.
My daughter and I would say, “Yes, Dear, that’s a F-R-O-G,” sounding out and spelling the word slowly and completely, also at the top of our lungs. Repeatedly.
By the end of November, my husband and I will have thirteen grandchildren—eleven and under. Our cup runneth over and spillety out with kids who say the darndest things, mostly with four letters. What fun.
Linda (Potty Talk) Zern
