Oscar Tyrone... A Lonely Kitty

Poor Oscar...

Poor Oscar-Tyrone...

My orange tabby Jeremy died back in November, and my eight-year old brown tomcat Oscar Tyrone has been a bit upset... and perplexed, every since. He sometimes walks around at night, wailing terribly.

When I get home from work in the evenings, he's always waiting there at the door expectantly, as if to say...

"Hey Ladylee, hope you had a great day! Do you have a special friend for me in your backpack?"

He requires a lot more attention these days, and I have had to force myself to pick him up and spend at least ten minutes a day petting and talking to him...

As I said earlier, I've had Oscar for eight years. Way back in 1997 the day after Christmas, my ex-husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, came home around two in the morning after just getting off from his night job... He turned on the bedroom light.

"Lee," he whispered.
"Um, can you turn off that light, please?" I answered.
"I just had to do it."
"Had to do what?"
"I had to do it."
"I'm not sure what you had to do, but you need to turn off that light," I said.
"I just had to get that kitten I was telling you about," he said.
I sat straight up in the bed. He'd been talking about a kitten for the past two weeks. I believe it belonged to a friend of his who was about to move out of state. "Old Boy, I told you not to bring that damn cat home. You know Jeremy is crazy, and he's gonna lose his mind." We'd discussed the extra cat issue, and it was out of the question.
"But I couldn't help it."
"Where is the damn cat?"
"Out in the car."
I put on some clothes and went out to his Honda and spent a couple of minutes looking for the kitty. I finally saw him, a little brown furry mass almost swallowed up by a white Hartz Flea and Tick collar, sitting up in the back window, looking at me like I was crazy.
I grabbed him and took him in the house.
"Baby, are you mad?" Oldboy asked.
"Nope, but Jeremy is gonna be, um, quite pissed." Jeremy was off somewhere asleep or brooding.
"What's his name?" I asked.
"Oscar."
"Oh, I know you gonna change that shit."
"Why?" Oldboy asked. "I kind of like that name."
"Sounds too white," I said.
"Well I ain't changing his name."
Erykah Badu's Tyrone had just come out. "Well, his middle name will be Tyrone."
Oldboy reluctantly agreed to the middle name.

When we divorced, Oldboy balked at the idea of taking his cat with him. "We can't break up the cats!" he wailed when I asked him if he wanted his cat. That sounded a bit silly. Shoot, we were breaking up.

So I have custody of Oscar-Tyrone.

I've been looking at kittens here and there, but I think I will wait until spring to get a new one.

Until then, I'll just have to hear poor Oscar Tyrone's late night wailings.

Don't worry, little boy... you'll have a friend soon!