Years ago, I used to visit relatives in Plattsburgh, New York, sixty miles south of Montreal. A lot of Canadians used to go there to shop because of the good exchange rate from Canadian to US dollars).

The stupidest thing I ever saw was at a grocery store when a van and a “clown car” with Canadian plates pulled in. The van had only the driver, and the car held more people than I thought could fit in it.

When they finished shopping and brought all the carts out, they loaded the van, and there was only room for the driver.

For those who haven’t figured out the stupid part: they only needed to pack everyone into the car to make sure they could all fit for the trip back north. Once they made sure everyone would fit, most could have gotten in the van for the trip south and been comfortable.

A close friend is introducing me to her baby son, and we are chatting.

Me: “So, what’s his name?”

Friend: “Reginald.”

That’s not the actual name, but it’s a good substitute.

Oh! I do not like the name. I look at the baby, and he does not look like a Reginald. No one under sixty looks like a Reginald! I don’t want to lie, but I also don’t want to tell the truth. So, I will have a chat around the name without giving my real opinion

Me: “Oh, that’s an interesting name. How did you pick it? Is it a family name, or does it have some other significance?”

Friend: “No, it’s just a name [Husband] and I have always liked.”

Me: “What does your family think of it?”

Friend: “They don’t like it.”

Me: “They told you that?!”

Friend: “No, but I could tell because they said, ‘That’s an interesting name. How did you pick it?’”

Rumbled! I stared at her in horror!

I blushed, and she smiled. I didn’t actually apologise because I didn’t want to say my opinion of her son’s name aloud, so I hoped she took my obvious shame as “sorry”.

She is a good person, so it did not cause a rift. We are still friends, and Reginald has grown into his name. It suits him very well. I have never told her that because I am hoping she has long forgotten that I didn’t like his name.

Amusingly, just after the original conversation, I saw part of a British sitcom where there was a character called “Reginald” played by an actor in his sixties. One younger character asked another, “How did he end up with the name Reginald? It suits him very well now, but how could anyone name a baby Reginald?”

Decades ago, I got yet another visit from a couple of representatives from a particular church. I was standing in the doorway with the screen door between us as they began their pitch. I do find these people annoying and try to save them (and myself!) time by letting them know that I am not the least bit interested as promptly as I can without being full-on butthead rude.

While I was waiting for a break in the conversation so I could spare us all wasted time and effort, my daughter’s black cat walked up next to me, sat down, looked up at me, and meowed.

I had heard that some of these cults were superstitious about black cats. The representatives were paused in their rhetoric upon the arrival of the black cat, just staring at it incredulously. In one of those rare quick-thinking moments, I looked down at the cat and said, “I think the remote is on the sofa.”

As if on cue, the cat stood up and walked around the corner. The representatives just stood there speechless, and I politely told them I was not interested and slowly closed the door.

I never had another representative from their church show up at my door the rest of the years I lived there.

Thanks, Missy the cat. You will always be held in high regard for your actions that day.

I didn’t intend to freak out the door-to-door people. I was just cracking wise, like I do all of the time. I am just not that clever. It just happened to cause them alarm, and since I never had any more visitors from that church, I consider it a happy (though accidental) side effect of a joke.

Our town has a cat man. He lives in a trailer and smokes a lot of weed. The cats who can’t take care of their kittens or want some help bring them to him. He feeds them, cares for them, socializes them, and then adopts them out. He is always surrounded by cats and kittens. If you want a kitten, you go to his trailer and ask to adopt one. He doesn’t charge anything; he just talks to you for a bit to make sure you’ll love the animal and take care of it.

He’s surrounded by books and video cassettes and always wears a big housecoat. He’s full of stories and will talk to you about cats, politics, music, movies, games, weed, or whatever it is. The trailer is cold and unlocked with a hole in the front door for the cats to come in and out. He always has them, though. They know to go to him.

I came to him today for a kitten because my foster kid is having a rough time. We are “borrowing” a kitten until he feels better, but I suspect the kitten will stay. We’ve named them Pizza Crust. Gender is unknown. Knowing the gender isn’t the cat man’s job. He is happy to “lend” Pizza Crust to us for as long as we need them. I mean, of course, he was happy to lend a kitten to help a child.

So, yeah, that’s our cat man. He’s the goat.

In this story, the author addressed a child by name because it was on a key ring on his backpack. I still remember when a cashier called little me by name in a toy store. I freaked out a little. I didn’t know her and  hadn’t told her my name; she was not supposed to know it.

It turned out that my name was printed on my portemonnaie (a wallet or pocketbook), which was hanging around my neck and visible.

I’ve heard that the opposite is a reason for not having your children run around with something displaying their name in public. If a stranger calls them by name, it can build up a little bit of trust that should not be there — “That person knows my name, so they must know my parents, so I don’t need to be that careful around them.”

On the other hand, a stranger only needs to listen in for a moment to learn your kids’ names (including uncommon pronunciations) and some statistics state that it’s a lot more common for “trouble” to come from people who already know your kids’ names, thus making “Stranger Danger” outdated in favour of “reasonable distrust”.

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