Ode to a Pooter

By: Angela Gillaspie Copyright © 1998, 2000, 2008

I'm a pooter person through and through. They are soft, funny, cute, loving, and their purr is one of the most relaxing sounds on this earth.

Pooters - also called cats in some parts of the world - have always been fascinating to me. And no, this isn't a reference to the gaseous output of digestion, but a variation of Tweety Bird's name for cat, a "pooty," as in, "I taught I taw a pooty tat." In my rural Southern dialect, it was quite appropriate for me to drop the "y" and add "er", henceforth a cat - Tweety's "pooty" - became my "pooter".

Now you know.

We lived way out in the country on a dirt road where - fortunately for me - folks liked to drop off unwanted animals. These animals weren't attractive, but more of the unsightly, pregnant and dirty kind. No matter how mean, ugly, or wild the pooter was - I could tame it and my arms, face, and legs bore the battle scars to prove it.

I never cared much for dogs. Their fur isn't soft. They are too goofy, like when they appear surprised and confused when they pass gas - as if their bottoms were separate entities from their bodies. The biggest reason I don't like dogs: they stink. You bathe them - they stink. They get damp - they stink. They go outside for a millisecond - they stink. On the other hand, pooters are silky soft and they aren't goofy, unless they're high on catnip, and they only stink if their litter boxes need changing.

Momma didn't like the pitiful creatures that I tamed and proudly paraded before her, and Daddy tried to convince me that he had a "special place" up on the hill for these animals. Don't think too harshly of him, he had a point - sort of. Back then, we didn't have the dog whisperer and some of those mangy dogs and cats had diseases that would affect our livestock and us. Also, some of the dogs weren't very friendly and they tended to run in packs that killed young cows and chickens. This is another reason I don't like dogs, they're like neighborhood bullies that pick on the young and feeble.

There weren't any close neighbors or kids my age, so I created fun pooter games. These included the put-the-pooter-down-my-shirt game and the swing-the-pooter-by-the-tail-and-see-how-far-it-goes game. After my older sister enlightened me that the "swinging pooter" game wasn't healthy for the pooter, I stopped it and went on to create more furry feline fun.

The put-squirt-cheese-on-the-Barbie-and-let-the-pooter-lick-it-off game was a hoot! Well, until Momma found out and put an end to my squirt cheese indulgence. Momma didn't like the feed-the-pooter-out-of-my-mouth game either. She did have a point - that cat food tasted pretty bad. Hey, it's a good thing Momma never found out that my little sister used to eat Meow Mix.

Oops. Well, she knows now.

Momma flat out did not like pooters at all. It might've been because of that time when some church ladies were sitting in the parlor talking about so-and-so's social. As they debated the pros and cons of serving apple pie versus apple cobbler, one of my pooters ran through the parlor with a pair of Momma's leopard print panties in its mouth. There was complete silence and you almost could hear the blood filling up Momma's face with a blush that burned like a second sun. Those church ladies were shocked that my Momma, a beautiful conservative Southern Baptist woman, would wear jungle panties. Momma was mortified that they discovered her liberal undergarment leanings. Lord o' mercy.

After that, I waited until Momma was gone before I played with my pooters inside. Before long I discovered that pooters needed to relieve themselves. They usually did it one or two places. Liquid jobs were done on Momma's couch, and if they had to do the other duty, they always went into my older sister's closet and did their business on her shoes. I could have five different cats in on five different days, and they would either go on the couch or in my sister's closet. It was uncanny . . . and funny (to me).

Later in life, I learned that you could actually train pooters to use the litter box. There were several other little nuggets I learned along the way:

• Never give a pooter milk, it gives him diarrhea.
• You can tell your pooter's mood by looking at his eyes or tail.
  • If he's mad at you for not sharing your bologna, his pupils will be thin and narrow.
  • If you scared him when you hollered during NASCAR qualifying or he's excited about a moth banging into the lamp, then his pupils will be big and round.
  • If your pooter swishes his tail back and forth, he's concentrating on something, like the meaning of life or whether to knock your toothbrush into the toilet or not.
  • If your pooter twitches his tail quickly, he's mad and I wouldn't recommend getting close enough to check his pupils verify.
• A pooter will always poop in the litter box right after you change it.
• Fishy cat food makes a really smelly litter box. Stick with chicken-flavored.
• Catnip is similar to kitty marijuana and don't give your pooter catnip at bedtime unless you want to stay up another hour or two.
• A paper sack makes a wonderful toy.
• If you don't answer your pooter's meow, which is an attempt to talk to you, he'll eventually stop asking you about your day and will lick his bottom only when you have company.
• Your pooter can get his head stuck in an empty mayonnaise jar and if you laugh at him, he'll pout for a week and rip up your package of toilet paper.
• Pooters usually deposit hairballs only in open obvious places, like the nursery or dining room floor when you're expecting houseguests.
• When capturing prey (bugs, snakes, lizards, etc.), pooters will almost always leave it where you can step on it.
• There's no snooze button on a pooter that wants breakfast.
• When you work on the computer, the pooter will bite your knuckles as you attempt to type.

I love sharing space with my pooter. Now that I'm the (ahem) mature mother of four, I don't have as much time to play games with my kitty, as I'd like. Although when no one is looking, I still indulge in the put-the-pooter-down-my-shirt game.

There's an Italian proverb, "Happy is the home with at least one pooter," and I believe this as being true, well, unless my pooter gets a hold of my leopard print undies, that is.

Stay tuned for more of SouthernAngel's catty articles!