This is a painting by Jackson Pollock, a famous painter and major figure in the abstract expressionist movement.

Just keep it in mind.

Now on to the post…

………

Dear Canine Guest,

I feel like there are some important things for you to know, and, while I’m not very good at subtle communication (my parents used to say I had the capacity to be just a touch overbearing), I’m going to give it a shot.

There are certain things that are frowned upon when one is a guest. Certain things, let’s say, that a guest should not do.

I, for example, have never entered your house and made a beeline to your legs or your toes with single-minded licking determination. Nor have I pushed my nose into your crannies or sniffed things that aren’t mine to sniff. Never. Not even one single time. But hey, I recognize that we all have our weird behaviors, and since I do come to your house on occasion and drink your mama’s diet grapefruit soda (with perhaps a smidgen or four of raspberry vodka), which you no doubt find as distasteful as I find the places you stick your face, we’re probably even.

Even Steven. Square. Evensies.

Here’s to interspecies understanding!

However, I’d like to point out that I also don’t come to your house, sniff out your husband’s Ghirardelli Midnight Reverie all natural chocolate on the bedside table, rip the lovely gold-on-one-side-and-silver-on-the-other foil into teeny, tiny pieces, slather those pieces with dog slobber, mix the slobber liberally with the bed sheet, ingest 2 tablespoons of chocolate and foil, and then ralph it all back up in Raging Regurgital Glory all over the Berber carpet (whose loops make a proper cleaning darn near impossible.)

I arrived at the quantity of chocolate you consumed by solving for x in the following equation:

¼ cup of bile on top of carpet
+
2 tablespoons (estimated) of bile soaked into carpet
+
x amount of chocolate
=
½ cup total dog regurgitation

(And, to think, I used to doubt the value of alegbra in everyday life.)

Now, Canine Guest, I know you probably read the chocolate package with its promise to give “moments of timeless pleasure,” but I think you and I can both agree that your consumption of it did no such thing. For either of us.

I’d like to know how you to plan to get back to evensies now, pal.

Hmm?

What’s that you say?

I was already running a deficit in the Even Steven department? What are you talking about, Dog?

Oh.

Oh, that.

I thought we agreed to never talk about that again.

You say I started it?

FINE. I started it.

And FINE. I guess I can’t get all uptight about cleaning up your doggy vomit when my kid once upon a major poop-smearing time channeled her inner Jackson Pollock all over your mama’s walls. I, at least, didn’t have to bring in a professional carpet cleaner for your mess.

Huh. Now I’m a little embarrassed I even raised this subject.

Tell you what. Let’s forget this whole thing.

Love,
Beth

P.S. You’re the cutest.

P.P.S. You just ralphed AGAIN. On the bathroom linoleum. Where I sit typing. Which is the clearest “shut up and stop making fun of me” from a dog I ever did hear. I do believe I’ve offended you. I’m truly sorry. I’ll make you a deal. You quit yarfing, and I’ll quit typing. K? K.

P.P.P.S. Thanks for trying to clean it up yourself this time. That was an upstanding move, man.