What kind of sicko names her cat after a serial killer?

Well, sometimes the name just fits.

My husband named a cat Spot after her spots, and we had Dot because the kitten had a dot on her chin. But Ted Bundy? Well, that was inspired.

When my husband and I adopted two almost identical male cats from the same litter, I wanted to give them the same last name. Not "Anderson" - that would have been too easy. So we considered Baldwin brothers, Osmond brothers, Wayan brothers, but nothing fit.

We were watching a rerun of "Married With Children" with the hapless shoe-salesman husband Al Bundy, and I blurted out, "What about Al Bundy and Ted Bundy?"

Noooooo. Too creepy.

But then it happened. Ted named himself.

I was beside the couch doing the yoga pose "Downward Facing Dog" - hands and feet on the floor with my rear end in the air. Little Ted was on the back of the couch, and the temptation was just too great. He jumped out and bit me on the butt - the "signature" of Ted Bundy, the man who killed a bunch of women in the mid-1970s.

So we have Ted and Al Bundy.

Other pet names

• Tammy Faye. This calico foster kitten had dark fur around her eyes and red on her head. See her namesake's picture, and you'll get it.
• Slash. This had nothing to do with kitty claws. I wanted to name this kitten Elmo, and my husband wanted Nemo, so for a split second he was Elmo-slash-Nemo, and forever after, simply Slash.
• Ollie. This guy's favorite pastime was shredding paper, so we named him after Lt. Col. Oliver North, who had his secretary shred Iran-Contra documents.
• Dot and Gomez. These black kittens were originally Morticia and Gomez, after the lovey-dovey, black-costumed couple on "The Addams Family." The kittens looked almost identical, except that Morticia had a white dot on her chin. To tell them apart, we renamed her Dot.
• Annie, short for Little Orphan Annie. This kitten's mother died before she was weaned, and she was nursed by a dog who had just had puppies.
• Clyde. He was our first cat, and he was simply Clyde. He adopted Little Orphan Annie, and the rest is history.