No, I Don’t Sell Kitten Britches

If only uniting the world was as simple as two sentences. If only a childhood diversion were enough to silence the noise. If only Two little sentences equivalent to a conversational slap in the face. A lingual jolt to snap you out of your train of thought.

Pulled from the dusty back section of my filing cabinet of memories, my mind opens a folder marked Childhood to hear these nonsensical words spoken in my Dad’s voice. The ethereal sound is followed by visions of puzzled expressions on the little faces peering up at their role model for answers to a myriad of questions.

A diversion made of ordinary letters and syllables. The perfect adult tool to stop a toddler’s relentless inquisition on “Why?” and “What for?”. Curiosity halted in its tracks, if only for a moment.

A blissful moment is necessary once in a while. A reprieve from searching for answers to questions sprouting from our own seeds of curiosity or thrown at us like a barrage of dodge balls from mini-humans releasing the pressure valve of energy building in their imaginations.

Cat’s fur to make kitten britches. Do you want a pair?

I never thought to ask Dad for an explanation of the origin story of this verbal phenomenon. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, I stopped peering up at my parents for answers to all of life’s questions.

Maybe Google knows. Don’t be silly! Of course, Google knows.

Thought to be originated in 19th century America, “Cat’s fur to make kitten britches,” was a common response to a grammatically incorrect question ending in the preposition for. Also, a technique used by adults to put off an inquisitive child.

Dad may have added the part querying the desire for a pair of said britches. Speculation on my part. No immediate Google evidence to confirm nor deny Dad’s ownership of that portion of the story.

If I felt lucky, I would throw the question onto social media platforms and see what kind of curveball comes flying back at me. Not worth the potential grief. Assumptions powered by anger management issues behind the anonymity of a faceless computer screen too often results in jagged replies, killing the desire to ever look beyond the known again.

Wandering down a contemplative detour, I do wonder though. Amidst the noise of tweeting, the bombardment of 24-hour news, and the arguing over right and wrong on Facebook, what could change the stream of thought on all sides? Better yet, what could unite the stream of thought on all sides?

Hmmm … If it works on toddlers perhaps it could also work on adults behaving like toddlers.

Cat’s fur to make kitten britches. Do you want a pair?

If I inserted these two sentences into social media, would it all stop for a moment? A blissful moment of no right or left, no conspiracies or fake realities or angry assumptions, no more my way is the only way. A silent moment when everyone is on the exact same page, sporting the same puzzled expression as they stare at the electronic version of my Dad’s voice.

A moment of forgetting attitudes and opinions. Shaken out of our own heads to contemplate a set of letters and syllables stitched together to form an inquiry that has no answer.

Such a notion is too simplistic and logistically impossible to be doable anywhere except in the imagination of a dreamer. Besides, someone out there would be angry that they could not order a pair of kitten britches from me.

As my contemplative detour circles back to the path of yesteryear, my mind envisions a cape-wearing cartoon image of Dad single-handedly bringing the chaos of the world to a standstill with two simple sentences of baffling nonsense. Peering up into heaven at one of my favorite role models, I smile and file this new image into the memory folder marked If Only.