#493 Nefarious Litter

Sometimes I’m driven to wonder why words are what they are. Our language is so rich in some ways, with fifty different words for the act of sexual congress, and yet it other ways so deficient, as if the person in charge of naming certain things got lazy. Either like the biblical Adam got tired or he decided to delegate some of his duties to people on the naming committee. And then everything went to hell. If you’ve ever been on a committee you know what I mean. There’s always one person who loves to hear himself talk, one suggester, who always has lots of ideas but never does anything, and then at least one person who is just lazy period. The lazy person on a committee is the one you never, ever, want to delegate any responsibility to. He’s the one who always manages to suddenly have a family emergency when the project deadline rolls around. I think he’s the one who named litter.
Litter is a surprisingly versatile word. Or perhaps accidentally versatile is more like it. You got your trash litter to be sure. But you also got two—count ‘em two—things that cats do. They have a litter when they have kittens, but they use the litter box not, as you might expect, to have children but when they have to poo. Kitty litter can therefore be confusing to our young. At least it was to me when I was four years old. I knew what was in the litter box. So when I saw a mamma cat with a litter of kittens I thought something more nefarious was at work than the way I knew humans to be born. With a stork. In a way, maybe it was a good thing. It inspired my early interest in scientific observation. I was sure next time my mom emptied the litter box I’d hear mewling noises. So for a while, I was watchful and curious and a little bit scared too. I mean, if kittens could come from a litter box was it safe for my mom to leave my baby brother’s diapers soaking in the toilet?
America, ya gotta love it