Reader responses

By Matt Vernon

Editors, the Gauntlet,

Re: "Bad Kitty, can I buy a pack of smokes?" Jan. 18, 2001

As the winner of the Name the Stör contest, I question the thought process of Ruth Davenport. I will be the first to admit that when two friends and I came up with the name Bad Kitty’s Cigarette and Snack Emporium we snickered. In all honesty, an old issue of Maxim helped us come up with the name. Unfortunately, Ms. Davenport would have us believe that we meant the name as some sort of obnoxious, chauvinistic joke. We assure you that we did not mean to offend anybody with the name; we were simply awestruck by the thought of a free slurpee tab for a year. The fact that she caught us and our suggestive name is OK, but the fact that she goes on to imply that we are some sort of sexist, S&M freaks is outrageous.

By her own logic we can turn pretty much any name into a sexually offensive phrase. Take Red Rooster (those of you from small-town Alberta know what I’m taking about): Red = blood, Rooster = cock = penis. Now as we all remember from junior high health class, blood in the penis means an erection. Anybody offended yet? Didn’t think so.

The last straw in the article was a remark about violence towards women. Really, if you can get all that from a store name then maybe it’s time to withdraw from psych classes before you’re irreversibly changed for the worse. My friends and I would never suggest that violence towards anybody be condoned.

Now that I’ve vented, may I suggest that rather than take offence to the proposed store name we should all relax and learn to laugh. Stop trying to look for hidden meanings where there are none and certainly don’t take offence to something that wasn’t meant to be offensive.