from my dog is ruining my life

deborah batterman

            “Impossible,” says Gary. “Dogs are pals -- playmates. Nobody will ever love you the way they do.” Not exactly the thing you want to hear from someone you slept with last night. His voice starts to crackle. Words snap and pop. Tunnel . . . lunch meeting . . . lace panties. “You’re breaking up,” I tell him. “Lace panties,” he says again.  Red. Eight p.m.  I shake my head, hang up the phone. Misha (my dog) suddenly surfaces from beneath the bed, her sanctuary from my morning rant about the overturned trash can.  She is eager to give me her peace offering, a pair of red lace panties she is so sure will merit a scratch on the head, if not a biscuit, for retrieving. She drops the panties on a neon green Frisbee lying at the foot of the bed.
            I’d been playing Frisbee in the park with Misha when Gary and I met. Gary intercepted the Frisbee. Misha jumped two feet in the air, grabbed it, figured she’d finally found her match in tug-o’war.  Fighting for the toy was far more fun than catching it.
            He took my phone number, called me an hour after I got home. “How about some dinner?” I am not sure if he is inviting me out or asking me to cook. I am wrong on both counts. “I’ll stop at the Chinese take-out,” he says. “You like Moo Shoo Pork?” I tell him I’m vegetarian. “Not a problem -- I’ll get the Moo Shoo without the pork. And a few spare ribs, for me -- if that’s all right with you.” I should have warned him that Misha loves spare ribs. It was the reason I stopped eating them.

            I had adopted Misha at the suggestion of my former boyfriend, Timothy. “You could benefit from some therapy,” he said to me. “At the very least, get yourself a dog.”  Being a therapist himself precludes his taking me on as a client, but not from making what he believes to be useful suggestions for my psychological well-being. “You’re fixated on a dog who died thirty-something years ago. You need to get past that.” I take his advice, go to the Humane Society, find myself a scruffy terrier mix. A few months later I break up with Timothy. It is a particularly frigid December day. I tell him I’m tired of his complaints about Misha sniffing his crotch every time he walks into my apartment and yelping (on his side of the bed) when we make love. I see this as a breakthrough (psychologically speaking). All of my relationships to that point seemed to have dissembled in springtime, which also happened to be the season my mother died. For me there is no month crueler than April. 
            Timothy smiles, folds his arms across his broad chest. I think he is being smug. He thinks I am acting out, overcompensating for the guilt wrought of a silly scene from my childhood. “You did not kill your dog,” he says. Walking out the door.