The Cat with the Dirty Name and the Family Dog

You know that age when you start re-watching movies you watched as a kid and you realize just how much you MISSED as a child and how.. Well, naive you were..?

Yeah I didn't hit that til my 20's. And It was then that I realized just how BAD my father's sense of humor was....

When my parents first married my mother's mother gifted them a small black and white cat. Grammie was always (and has always) taken in strays to care for and love them. She's a good hearted woman.
So my parents kept the little ball of fluff and agonized over a name.

One night, while watching some film or another one of the guys during a birthing scene was speaking in French to the woman and saying "Push".

My dad decided that was the cat's new name.
It wouldn't be a big deal.. If the name translated properly into English.

Meet.. Pusé.

No. I'm not kidding. Our cat's name literally sounded like "pussy".
Thanks, Dad.

However, as a child I failed to make that connection.
My first word as a baby was "kitty". I grew up with Pusé.... Later affectionately re-named "Pooter".
(Lord.... My family really IS messed up).

As a result of my obliviousness I wrote papers all throughout elementary and middle school about my family and our pets. The number of teachers who probably laughed at me behind my back probably.... is every single one of them. Not to mention the countless numbers of classmates who, being more knowledgeable than me, got a laugh out of it.
That was probably part of my problem in middle school but... I digress.

Pooter was one of those.. Onrey.. Mean... Sneaky... Cats.... Wonderful at his core but also insanely devious.

I have stories of my dad giving this cat fun-sized "Snickers" wrappers... Pooter would haul them off into rooms and hiding places unknown... My dad thought this was a great joke... Probably gave the cat half a bag of wrappers before realizing what a HORRIBLE idea it actually was...


In the dead of night... My dad is drawn out of his sleep by a very explainable noise.

The damn cat has one of the Snicker's wrappers at the foot of the bed and has chosen now, of all times, to play with it.

He takes the wrapper, throws it away and gets back in bed.

On the verge of sleep my dad, again, hears that familiar noise... Another wrapper.... He begins to contemplate just HOW many he gave this cat...

He gets up, takes the wrapper, throws it away, looks for others, finds none... and gets back in bed....


This continues for several hours. The cat brings a wrapper into the bed room... my dad gets out of bed... Throws the wrapper away... Gets back in bed.... Cat brings another...

Rule number one? Cats can use ANYTHING to get back at you for revenge. Even plastic wrappers.

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When my sister and I were children my parents decided the time was right to adopt a dog.  We'd been wanting one for a while and a family friend needed to give up her Boxer.


So we ended up with "Missy". I would be lying if I said one of the softest spots in my heart wasn't for this dog. Missy was bright, intelligent, loyal, protective and above all else... Part of our nutty family.

Missy was the type of dog who would sooner lick you to death than ACTUALLY hurt you...But she looked mean. I can't count how many people crossed to the other side of the street to get away from her... She was only ever interested in greeting them.
Missy didn't have a mean bone in her.

In fact... Missy loved to dress up. This dog wore.... Tutus... Dresses...  Even once, she wore an apron and won a contest for my sister.  We used to get her involved in our dress up games.

That's not to say Missy was a saint. She liked to chew up the wrong things and make her fair share of messes.

This dog once ate an entire pizza in less than a minute while our back were turned.

This is also the dog who could say "mama!"
My dad once leaned over to her during breakfast and asked her "Who made the bacon?"
We would all SWEAR to you that dog barked out a "MAMA!"

My childhood with these animals was unique and filled with joy... When my family moved to another town I learned just how much I was going to need the strength of my family and these animals.

And while it's true that the good times don't last forever... They are wonderful to keep in your heart.

The Mask that Will Survive Generations and Live in Infamy.

My dad had this camouflage jacket he liked to use when he was going hunting. It was great because he could fold the collar up to better hide his human scent to better shoot Bambi, right?
Well it just so happened he could fold the collar up over his head so high that he looked quite headless. It actually worked on me at a bonfire one night after he secretly stalked off into the distance and pretended to be a headless guy wandering around in this field we were supposed to camp at.

I didn't sleep that night and it goes without saying he didn't either.
Teach him to play a prank on me! HAH!

Following up on success...That Halloween my mom got this GREAT idea to get back at the neighborhood kids who were taking advantage of the "take one" signs people would leave in their bowls of candy while they were out trick-or-treating with their kids (or in some cases were being too damned lazy to get up and keep going to the door.)

We had this real nice park bench outside our house that we always left the candy basket on while we went out to knock down people doors and scream for candy ourselves. This year it was going to be a little different.
We left dad on the park bench disguised as the headless man and when the greedy little kids would come up to take a handful he'd grab their hands and scare the "trick" right out them.

Joyously humor filled. Trust me on this: There's nothing more delightful than knowing that little kid down the street was screaming because he just had the snot scared out of him.

However, my mom knew this wasn't going to work the next year. So she devised a new plan. Two weeks before Halloween we had "arts and crafts" at our house. Every night. We painted tombstones and raked leaves from other people's yards and shopped at discount places for tricky looking graveyard props and a long black robe with an attached hood.

Then my dad found "the mask".
There just is not a way to properly describe this thing. It has this gory looking face on the front. It's jaw hangs open in what can only be described as a shriek of pure maliciousness. The reddened eyes bore into you with pure hate and it has this mottled looking skin with the color of spoiled dairy and fog... To top it all off snow-white wiry-feeling hair encases the entire outside of this face from hell.
He was our Grim Reaper and we couldn't have been more excited about him coming to life.

My family is evil. We know.

The day of Halloween we began setting up the lawn. We laid out a stuffed version of "Headless Bannon" and his gravestone read:
"Here lies Bill
Forever Still
He Lost his Head
and Now is Dead."
My dad stayed inside all day.

We loosely covered our stuffed dad with leaves and dirt and placed the other gravestones we'd created around him. The end result was pretty cool looking... And you really could not tell "Bill" was stuffed.

My mom found this nappy looking wig and painted up her face to look like a caretaker / gravedigger.

She would sit on the front porch and wait for an army of kids to come up to hear the story of "Bill"then give them the candy they were waiting on. All the while they've got their eye on the stuffed "Bill" and are waiting for him to get up and scare them...

My dad, on the other hand, donned this long, pitch-black flowing robe, "the mask", and put up the hood to the point that, in the dark, the only thing visible was that wretched face and the snow-white hair. While my mother told the story my dad would slip around the opposite side of the house "Bill" was laid on... and come up behind the group of kids listening to the story.

Then they would turn around to see this.... Thing.

To describe the reactions does them an injustice. We found a lot of candy on the lawn the next day. There were near-constant shrieks of terror flowing away from our home all night. One kid ran all the way down the street and then shouted back that "I KNOW that's YOU Mr. Bannon! And THAT wasn't VERY NICE!" 


Our home was the most talked about home for years because of that Halloween.

Truth is.. Kids stopped taking too much candy after that. Because... who knew when the Grim Reaper might show up next?

They Were Right.

So.. I guess to start this off.... I have to start at the beginning...
Well... Maybe not THAT beginning. I don't want to bore you through my baby and toddler years that even I can't remember....

How awful would THAT be!?

So instead I'll start with the basics about my family before I dive into all of this...

I come from a family of four.

A mom, Julie.

A dad, Bannon.

A sister, Katie.

And, of course.... My adorable self.

My family is small. As a child I used to hear stories of these large families with twenty-five cousins and four aunts and ten uncles and great-aunts and great-great grandmothers...
My family.. My immediate close family... I can count on two hands.
My mom's father died when I was a baby so I only know my Grammie.
My dad's parents are Grandaddy and Muther. He also has a sister... My Aunt Joy who was married to my Uncle James.
That's it. That's my family. Not a lot to remember... and Holidays are WAY easier this way.

We hail from a small town in North-East Texas where the population is about the size of the numbers of fingers and toes on my immediate family. The local Wal-Mart is a big deal there.
However, we moved away when I was a baby to a town slightly larger than that of the previous and this trend actually continued again after my sister was born. When I was starting elementary school we moved to a significantly more populated area... But this place was considered "The country"...

My childhood? That was happy. Sure.. I may have whined and complained...

Stomped my feet and threw fits....

Fought with my sister...

And made my parents INSANE....

But.. I was happy. ..
And so was the rest of my family.

Some of my most fond memories are the silliest ones... Monsters under the bed.. Crazy birthday parties sponsored by my incredibly creative mother... Climbing to the top of the tree in our backyard and giving our mother a heart attack...  Playing ridiculous games that involved a round-about fireplace, running around it in circles and all the while our parents shot hair ties as us as from the couch as we zipped by. (What..? You didn't do that?!)
There was also playing hide and go seek in the dark.. And having our parents scare the devil out of us for fun...

There was lots of laughter in my childhood.

But then again... As children we only think our parents are unfair and that they're out to make us unhappy.

Life got harder after childhood when we moved to a less-country place...
And I'm still not sure I handled it all correctly...

However... My parents are great parents..

I've never told them this to their face and... God knows I can't until I'm speaking to an urn of ashes, bawling my eyes out, wiping snot off my hands and I have children of my own... But...

The truth is... My parents were right... About everything.