I gotta know. I hate it when I can't figure out where a word comes from or what it means in context. So what does the "self" in "black-self" mean? And what does "black-self" mean? In the same vein, it dawned on me this weekend what the origin of the term "pissed off" has got to be. When I only had cats and I angered them (like by going away overnight) they would unroll all the toilet paper and knock things off the coffee table. When I married Eric and his dog, and we went on our first vacation without her, we came home to learn that my mother had thrown out the rug from our front hall and was mopping the floor daily because the dog was mad at us. I had forgotten this incident until this weekend. Our five fuzzies and their two condos and all their tubes and blankies and treats are housed in our bedroom while the fuzzies' rec room is having repairs done. Well ... not only do they not like the confinement of the (very large) bedroom, they also do not like to be left alone in there. First they started to pee in front of the door if I closed them in the room. Last night Sabine started to back into the corner by Eric's dresser. I cried, "NO NO," and carried her to a litter box. The little poop (or do I mean pisser?) gave me her mule look and ran under the bed to pee on a caster. And the lightbulb lit over my head: She's Pissed Off!! And the coiner of the term must just gotta certainly have had a pet. Judith White [Posted in FML issue 1612]