I have to admit there are a lot of women named Cathy, or Kathy. The lady next door is one. I can think of at least two others right on our block. Then there’s a Kathy over in Liethville, and I know a couple in New York City and at least one in Washington.
Years ago in Miss O’Toole’s third grade class, there were two girls named Kathy. Miss O’Toole’s solution was to call them Kathy One and Kathy Two. Their parents thought it was cute. Nowadays, the parents would be fighting to see whose Kathy got the Number One designation. A dispute like that could grow nasty real quick and wind up in court.
Yes, too many females named Kathy or Cathy.
So it’s no surprise to learn that the Democrats are getting ready to introduce legislation that would control how many baby girls born in our glorious democracy can be named Cathy or Kathy.
Details are fuzzy, but in one version of the proposed legislation all parents who wanted to name a child Kathy or Cathy would have to obtain a permit. Each year the Census Bureau would tell us how many baby girls could be named Kathy or Cathy, based on such things as how many Cathys or Kathys had died and how the total number of them compared on a national basis to Carols, Susans, Virginias, Esmereldas, Glorias and so on.
That sounds like a lot of computing, but the Census Bureau has a lot of computers. And if they got bogged down, they would turn to the National Security Agency for help when their massive computers have spare computational time on a slow day in the War on Terror.
The Census Bureau and the NSA are pretty close to one another out there in the Maryland suburbs near Washington. So the Census folks could probably just load up a bunch of computer tapes in the back of a pickup truck and drive them to the NSA.
Unless it was raining. You wouldn’t want the tapes to get wet. But they could always drop by a Wal-Mart and buy a plastic tarp. There’s a lot of Wal-Marts in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, but not that many Sam’s Clubs. Who knows why?
It should also come as no surprise that if you want to take out a permit to name a new baby girl Kathy or Cathy, you will have to pay a fee. But of course! Got to do something to whittle down the Bush deficit. How does $50 for a Kathy or Cathy permit sound? Sounds okay to me, but I’m not a good judge of what’s a fair price, since I don’t anticipate bringing any Kathys or Cathys into the world.
To be sure, there are lot of details to be worked out. What if you have a brand new baby boy and want to name him Kathy? Will the Feds tell you only girls can be named Kathy? Or will they look the other way and issue the permit because they need the money?
And what about someone who undergoes a sex change operation and changes his name from Edward to Cathy? Would a permit be required? Well, yes. Like I said, the Feds need the money.
But hold on. Here’s another wrinkle: If you undergo a sex change operation and apply for a Cathy or Kathy permit, could the Bush Administration use that as a way to stop people from having sex change operations?
Yes, there are lots of complicated issues involved in doing something about the rapid growth of females named Cathy or Kathy. But you have to give the Democrats credit for at least trying to tackle the problem.
After more than than six years in the White House, the Republicans failed to even notice the Kathy and Cathy proliferation problem, let alone try to fix it.