This is a story about my editor, who we'll call Mrs. X (although it's really Cassie Cox, and you should definitely contact her if you need to have any editing done, since she has the coveted Kozeniewski Imprimatur™.) So, Mrs. X (really Cassie) owns (or, to use the "clever" cat person term, "is owned by," ha ha ha that never gets old) a cat named Fuzzy Britches.
A brief aside about this name. Mrs. X initially purported that the animal in question's name was Fuzzy Breeches. Now, I took this as a particularly clever triple- or possibly quadruple-pun combining the "fussy britches" quote from The Shawshank Redemption, the cat's long hair, and a healthy love of the Second Amendment. However, this was later amended to "Fuzzy Britches" which lowers the pun count to only two, or three, depending on how you look at it. That being said, moving forward we will never bring this contentious name issue into play again and will simply refer to the animal as "Fuzzy."
So, when Fuzzy was purchased (or rescued, or whatever - "obtained" I guess would be a better word but that sounds so damn clinical although I suppose not as clinical as "purchased" which almost makes the cat sound like a prositute...but I digress) it was determined to be a male. I'm not sure how this determination was made, but if it was anything like the way my newest cat, Nibbler, was gender-identified, it probably consisted of a YMCA lady holding the cat up, checking its nether regions and saying, "Yep, it's the gender you prefer if you'll take it off our hands for us" and then us accepting this judgment based on her obvious credentials of being the lady at the fair with the cats. Anyway, I'm sure a similarly thorough procedure was went through for Fuzzy's gender identification, and then "he" was saddled with that name which we swore we wouldn't mention again, which, fortunately, is fairly gender neutral and appropriate for a longhair.
Did I mention Fuzzy was a a longhaired cat? That's kind of important for this next part. So Mrs. X brought Fuzzy into the veterinarian's office for a checkup and someone at the vet's office, presumably with levels of experience commensurate to "YMCA fair lady" checked and determined that Fuzzy was, in fact, a girl, and not just a girl, but an unneutered girl. Naturally, this threw Mrs. X for a loop but, luckily, as I mentioned above, Fuzzy had a gender neutral name, and, so, being a good pet owner, she signed her newly minted female cat up for a good and thorough spaying. Or possibly neutering. I never really learned the difference.
So, a few weeks later, having finally come to grips with the true gender identity of her cat, Mrs. X took poor, long-suffering Fuzzy into the vet's office for her pre-scheduled surgery. And, naturally, as you may have guessed by this point, it turned out that not only was Fuzzy not a girl, but she was, in fact, already neutered as well. I should probably be thankful for YMCA fair lady, because at least she didn't miss Nibbler's penis hiding in a thicket of long hair.
And thus ends the ballad of Fuzzy Britches, the world's first transgender cat. What new and exciting genders will next week bring? Only time will tell, but stay tuned to this channel and we'll bring you all of the latest developments.
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