"Why didn't you tell me *before* I went?", Preston groaned.
The dog, one of those white furballs which wasn't a chihuaha or a toy poodle but some other yapper with a smashed-in mutant face and voice like a rat in pain, had to be officially named; the wife got to buy it pink bows and rhinestone collars; Preston got to register it with the local Canine Control Board. Often mute, his voice hoarse from days of disuse and his face a placid waxen mask, Preston became animated when discussing the naming of brutes.
"The dog, Sharon's dog," he stammered, "I drove all the way down there and I couldn't give it the name I wanted".
Preston knew all about itsy-bitsy Shitty-Ipsus, Squeakineezes, Pompom-eranians, and every other sacred mini-breed in the Kennel Club bible. The wife would rock it in the folds of her lap, coo as she stroked its ribboned forelocks, dab its rubbery nose with a lace hanky, take it for coiffeurs and pedicures; when it yapped, she'd reward it with an oranically grown, herbal, heart shaped pacifier stinking worse than dog's breath. Preston would crunch its paw under his work boots, leaving itsy-bitsy lame for life, and himself cursing the vet bill and invisible pests which scurried underfoot. And it would bark him awake in the blind hours of the night, when even the moon had gone into hibernation and the ghosts napped, just because it had forgotten to empty its bladder.
"I told the lady that I wanted to name it 'Shithead'." he muttered. Yak, yak, yak, yowling to be papmered like a supermodel baby, with a brain no larger than a turd, what else could it be named? "I thought of Dung Dog Dingaling or Pain In The Butt," he added, "but those were too long".
But, the clerk at the pound refused to sanction such a name. Any owner who'd call his dog - his future best friend, his ever loyal and affectionate buddy - "Shit Head" simply didn't deserve to own a pooch; even a mangy mut was too good for such a sarcastic sadist. Name the dog
"Kitty"or "Killer" or even "Brunnhilde", but never, never name him after excremement.
Besides, the clerk wondered, "What would the neighbors think?". Surely, the dog would be poisoned soon after ariving home; some neighbor, hearing the shout of "shit head" during prime time TV hours, would conclude that the mut was a bad influence on all the innocent kiddies, and thus deserved destruction. Perhaps, too, the name would cause confusion. After all, didn't some of the neighborhood's most upstanding citizens use the same name in referring to, even calling after, their own spouses and kids?; would some brat or nerd believe himself newly popular when he heard his nickname called from outside, while Daddy sat silently across the table?
Visions of panting laboradors whimpered in the clerk's head; she would pray for the souls of Preston and his pooch, and would do her civic duty. Resolutely shaking back her gray poodle curls and glaring over her reading glasses, she snapped "Sir, we can not allow you to name your dog...eh, eh...this. We at Canine Control do not condone profanities, or any other disrespectful treatment of animals. Fill out this new form and return it when you've found a more proper name". Her glossy nails clattered across the desk as she pushed the paper forward, then jerked her scented claws away from Preston's grease-grouted knuckles.
Preston abandonned his original grandiose plan.
"So, what did you name it?"
"Princess", Preston muttered, almost inaudibly.
Pause.
"You know," I began, "You still could have named it Shithead. Only, spelled differently. C-h-y-t-t-h-e-d-d"
"Huh?"
Preston had forgotten some fundamental truths about spelling - that the same word can be spelled several different ways phonetically, that the romance of some spellings obscures any other implied meanings. He'd forgotten about the lure of Stonehenge, the mystique of Celtic princesses and the undying charm of long dead Irish wizards. "Chytthedd" could been a medieval castle on the moor, its dark ramparts and mysteries swathed in the silver of fog and moonlight."Chytthedd" would have been a melodious and intriguing name for any pooch,one which any upstanding official with respect for antiquity would have accepted gladly.
