One Giant Suck

Oh, that's a Canadian term, by the way. I think the American equivalent would be "Big Pathetic Baby." I was taken aback when first I heard it. Now I use it all the time.

This, gentle readers, is the perfect example of a GIANT SUCK:

Soxxy strikes this pose whenever he smells meat being carved, served, cut up, cooked, dined upon, etc. Tonight it was beef. If it were chicken, Soxxy would have rolled completely onto his back, splayed his legs and given us the biggest mooniest eyes one could ever see. Fish will have him pawing the table. The table TOP! He really is big.

Soxxy is our 20-pound cat. He wasn't always 20 pounds. When I went back to the states for a 3-week visit in '07, he gained a LOT of weight. A LOT. Hubby works 12-hour shifts and he'd fill Soxxy's bowl in the morning, then fill it again in the evening. Soxxy had a very big bowl. Soxxy cleaned his bowl every time it was filled. Soxxy didn't go outside and play much during those 13 hours hubby was away. Soxxy lazed about most days. For three whole weeks. I've had him on a diet since and he's gone from 24 pounds to 18 pounds and then he bounces around a bit in between. When I have foster cats, it's hard to keep Soxxy underfed as he cleans their bowls. When Soxxy leaves the house he visits all the homes of people who have soft spots for strays and he eats the food they leave on their porches for the strays. (I tell them not to feed Soxxy, but they love him so they do. Food is not love!) Soxxy checks the neighbour's cats' bowls every day, a few times a day, just in case those cats might have forgotten something. Soxxy catches birds. He doesn't just play with them. He eats them. Soxxy sits at my 9-year-old's feet in the morning hoping he'll get to lick the last drops of milk from said 9-year-old's cereal bowl. (Of course he gets to. My 9-year-old's a softie!) Soxxy lays in the pose pictured above in the hopes of getting a treat. Soxxy doesn't get treats anymore. Poor Soxxy. Or as I have come to call him, Fatty McFatCat. Hubby calls him Fat Lazy Oaf. My 9 year old is concerned that we might be hurting Soxxy's feelings. My 9-year-old calls him Soxxy. And he sits with him and talks to him in the gentlest of voices, telling Mr. McFatCat that we don't really think he's fat. (Yes we do.) That he's not really fat at all, he's just a big cat. (He's a big, fat cat.)

Now you learned something new and you don't have to be flabbergasted when you hear someone or something called a 'suck' in Canada.