Miss Oreo

If you're guessing who Miss Oreo was, she wasn't a cookie queen or a mixed race southern beauty, but she was this little black and white cat that showed up at our doorstep one morning as I was going to work.  She bolted from the bushes in front of the house as I was approaching my car.  A long plaintive "meeeooowww", a shin rub, a look in my eye with another half meow hit me just the right way, for her.  Also, she looked a little thin.  If this happened a hundred other times, I would have just gotten in my car and drove to work.  Instead, I went back into the house, opened a can of our cat's food, and put it on the front stoop for my new little friend.  Had Genna been awake when I went back into the house, and asked what I was doing, that might have been the end of it.  Genna, as you'll see shortly, wished she was, awake.

What to name her.  I thought of Oreo almost right away.  Oreos were my favorite snack, and in those days, I chain munched from box to box on the front seat of the car.  The "Miss", came later, when it was apparent how willful and single minded she was.  

How to sell Miss Oreo to Genna.  I realized that between my way to work and going home, I had to come up with a plan.  We already had one cat, Tabby, a spayed red one, who was easing into old age a few ounces at a time, a butterball turkey without wings.  Then I realized, Genna owed me one.  When she first started teaching, she came home one day before me in the middle of winter with a scrawny, dehydrated gray and white cat (Smokey, another post, coming up).  Didn't ask me, but I was OK with it.  One good turn....

Sure enough, Oreo was at the front door when I came home.  Once you feed a cat, its 'til death do you part from the cat's perspective.  Genna was OK with Miss Oreo, as I suspected, on one condition, "She better get along with Tabby, or she's outta here.  You can take her to the shop (see "The Route 3 Piglet").  I agreed.

Less than one week later, Genna calls me at work, "Oreo is chasing Tabby around the house."

"Leave them alone, they'll seek their own level, don't interfere," and I hung up.

Less than two minutes later, its Genna, "I tried to protect Tabby, and that little bitch bit me on the ass.  My ass cheek looks like I got bit by a snake."

After not listening to me, I couldn't help but add," I bet it looks like the one on Cleopatra's breast."

No laugh.  Not helpful.  Just, "You'd better get this furry little bitch out of my sight by tomorrow morning.  Her new home is Secaucus, NJ."

At this point, I have to tell you another thing about Miss Oreo (Genna sarcastically called her that from then  on).  She only liked me.  Everyone else, friends, family, business associates, she gave a hard time.  Even my father-in-law, George Sr. rest his soul, who had a gifted way with animals, couldn't get along with her.  He would come out to the shop to visit after he retired and sit down in his old cubicle.  Miss Oreo would sit on his lap, get petted, purr, then bite him.  I'd hear George scream, see Miss Oreo come flying out of the cubicle, then George, standing with a bleeding hand, incredulously saying, "She bit me..., she bit me!"  I sure he died a sadder man than he would have because of Miss Oreo's treatment of him.

As for the Tabby and Oreo affair (wrong word),  I think Miss Oreo was coming of age, so to speak, and Tabby had long ago sown his last oat and was not attuned to her wishes.  Sort of, Lola didn't get what she wanted.  Just my two cents.

Tabby was so traumatized, he hid under our dust ruffled bed for three days.  We had to put his litter next to the bed.  He'd use it, then go back under, where he took his meals, for THREE days!!  

The other term Genna used to refer to Oreo was the "schizo."  Being a Gemini myself, I wasn't one to work up a defense for her.  She was more than a little odd.  I surmised she lost her mother at and early age.  Number one, she was a runt.  Number two, she would sit on my lap while I was at my desk, push my belly as if to draw milk, then suck on one of my shirt buttons.  I would then get up and get her a little milk or half and half, which she'd lap up like a kitten.

When I retired, I sold the building we did business in.  That meant Miss Oreo had to come home with me after about ten years.  Genna and Miss Oreo got along OK, as long as they kept a room between them, and Tabby had already gone to catnip Heaven.

As I said, she only liked me.  She was more than a little kooky, if not crazy.  However, it was a nice feeling to know I had all of Genna's, and Miss Oreo's love, and was not a bigamist.