How the animals got their names.

Our first cat was born in my mother's garage to the tiniest siamese cat you'd ever seen. We all called her Princess, and she expected to be treated like one. Toes-are-Tasty inherited none of her genes as far as I can tell. He's a gray tabby and is our most sociable cat. He went home with Can-We-Nuke-'Em, as this was a few years before we were married, and was content as the uncontested ruler of the apartment.

Then one day, Can-We-Nuke-'Em and his roommate Tiberius decided that if they got Toes-are-Tasty a playmate, maybe he'd stop pouncing on their feet at 5 am, demanding to play. They came home with Why-is-my-food-bowl-empty. Little did they know, Why-is-my-food-bowl-empty would only make their lives more complicated. See, she cannot stand to see the bottom of her bowl. She'll meow and howl, and sit on you until you go fill it up to the top (shaking the bowl so that the remain food covers the spot where she dug down to find the bottom of the bowl doesn't cut it.) Also, Toes-Are-Tasty and Why-is-my-food-bowl-empty hated each other. Much yowling and cat fighting happened until they'd sectioned off the apartment and chosen to ignore each other.

Meanwhile, my sister's puppy died tragically, and my mom took her to the SPCA to find another. I just happened to be home that weekend, and I tagged along. I fell in love at first sight with the only white puppy in a enclosure of German shepherd/chow mixes. They all been dumped together, and the SPCA though that Pet-Me-Now-Please was a Great Pyrenees/German Shepherd mix and the sibling of the other brown and black puppies, one of which, my sister adopted. I-eat-houses, for that was what this puppy did, never got much bigger, and had a taste for siding. Mom was not impressed. As Pet-Me-Now-Please got bigger, we took her to the vet, who tried not to laugh hysterically when told that she was a Great Pyr/German Shepherd, informed us that she was most likely a yellow lab/husky or malamute mix, and was two months older than I-eat-houses. All of this was okay with me, for Pet-Me-Now-Please is the easiest dog I've ever met. If you pet her, she is happy. Food is good too, but she'd rather be pet.

Then, Can-We-Nuke-'Em and I combined household out east, and all the animals came with us. After the dog stopped freaking out about being somewhere new, she decided that cats were not worth bothering with and settled down for a lifetime of being pet.

You'd think at this point, the house would be full. Well, one day we went to buy cat food, and there were kittens. Two of them actually, tiny white fluff ball that had been born to a feral mother. The lady said, "Two-for-One!" and so we took Fluff-for-Brains and I-am-a-Lion-really home. Besides thinking that Pet-Me-Now-Please was the best play toy ever, I think they really thought they'd grow up to be as big as her. Fluff-for-Brains would crawl up on top of the washer and wait for Pet-Me-Now-Please to walk by and then pounce! Then the cat would hurtle himself through the air at the dog and try and play ride 'em, cowboy with the dog. The dog just turned around and looked at him and then kept walking.

When we moved up north, we packed up everything. Including Fluff-for-Brains. The truck was almost all packed, and then we noticed he was gone. All the animals had been shut up in our room to avoid packing them, so we knew he had to be either in the dresser or the bed. A little rearranging later, we found Fluff-for-Brains in the box spring, and he was not going to move. We had to cut the fabric liner on the bottom off to pry him out. He was not a happy camper, but he was retrieved safely. He and I-am-a-Lion-really spent the entire car ride north yowling at the top of their lungs, and to this day Brains-for-Fluff will not go near a carrier voluntarily. Sadly, I-am-a-Lion-really died shortly after we moved north.