A letter to LovesHerDog

I'm cranky and tired and cold and feeling monumentally sorry for myself (my brownies ran out yesterday, and none of you have commented how heavenly they look, bah) and I despite my best efforts, I'm still feeling kind of violated and hurt and depressed and all sorts of deep feelings like that, and am still in moody bitch mode, so I'm just going to indulge myself with some ranting here.

To Loves HerDog:

Dear LovesHerDog,

For the most part, I like you very much. You've been unfailing generous in offering to pick me up at ungodly hours because the useless us service does not run after 6pm. Your rent is reasonable, you're not nitpicky about when I forget that the rent is due, you're generally easy-going, you are generally cheerful, a feat that I wouldn't ever be able to achieve without the help of some seriously recreational drugs, you have all the seasons of Buffy and Angel, and bless you heart, you bought me some seriously funky handwarmers when the weather started turning cold.

But of late, you are seriously beginning to step on Slinky's tail.

It's not that I don't appreciate that you don't have much time, between uni and work and what with your three-hour unexpected naps and your remembering to not remove your wet clothes from the washing machine, not removing you dry clothes form the washing line so we can hang up ours, and watching endless hours of TV serials which you've illegally downloaded over the months, thus causing us to exceed our allotted internet quota and forcing us to go on dial-up (which, honestly, I am rather grateful for since the dial-up turned to be a hell of a lot better than the fucking broadband speed *shakes fist at the ISP*). So, yes, I understand that your schedule is a little busy.

But perhaps you could find some time in your terribly packed routine to remove the bowl which used to hold cereal and milk, which you used three days ago, and put it with the other dishes which you haven't washed on the kitchen counter. You know, the dishes you used to make dinner last night when you woke up after a four-hour nap to recover from not going to uni or work and decided to have dinner at midnight. Oh yes, and that was the time that your phone went off eight times to the tune of Outkast's 'Heya', prompting Punky to attempting to bury your bag under a cushion, because he is too gentlemanly to root through a lady's bag even if her phone is driving him mad (The ninth time broke him though. I thought that phone as going to go through the window).

I know, I know, perhaps I'm being sensitive. Because I should be used to it by now. Remember that time where Punky and I tracked down the fruitfly invasion which was threatening to infest the pizza dough Punky was making from scratch on the kitchen counter (swoon) to the massive bowl of fruit on the side table? You had piled new apples on top, but there was rotting fruit at the bottom! How clever, disgusting your decaying produce like that! After gingerly fishing out all the rotting fruit, Punky and I, after recovering from braving the freezing cold to dump the unrecognizable apples into the compost heap in the freezing night, were congratulating ourselves, and then we realized the flies weren't gone. And that was when we discovered the Food Processor of Death which you'd ingeniously disguised under a tea towel, which you'd apparently used a month before to make orange and apple juice, but which you never bothered cleaned! I can't tell how delightful it was to strap on our biohazard suits and our gas masks to dump that thing in he garage. (No, we don't actually have those, but it makes me wish we had. Oh, I jest.) Of course, that sat quietly rotting in the garage for another month or so. We had a good laugh about it when we could breathe again, didn't we?

And of course there was the time that you made pastry something-or-another, and left your utensils all over the kitchen counter for the next two days, and Punky's and mine's favorite saucepan was delicately sprinkled with little pieces of old meat, sauce, carrots and potatoes for the next three days. I guess it was a bit rude of me to remind you to wash up, but then again, I don't think you took offence, because everything sat there for the next three days anyway, rotting next to the stove where Punky and I cook, so you probably didn't hear me. I do apologize if I upset the balance of the delicate ecosystem of the bacteria colonies you were obviously trying to cultivate when I dumped everything in a sinkful of oiling hot soapy water, but the whole typhoid thing just never did it for me, you know?

And let's not forget the numerous times Punky and I clean out the fridge to discover liquefying, oozing foodstuff. Like the cucumber which was wrinkled as an octogenarian’s asshole. We think it was a cucumber anyway. Or the lettuce Punky discovered last night, which he found because it was deliquescing into a brown sludge and oozing out of the fridge. And, ooooh don't forget the curry that nearly stood up and walked away when we scraped it out from the back of the fridge.

I know all of this is offset by the fact that you're an excellent cook, so I shouldn't complain. Like this fried rice, for example:



Oh wait, haha, silly me, that's not fried rice. That's just plain old white rice we bought. Yeah, the stuff you used half of to make fried rice, but burnt in that huge pot. And which you left for the next three weeks, on the stove where Punky and I cook (not you though, because you eat frozen dinners). Those colored blobs are fungus. And we had to bleach that pot didn't we? Fun times.

I have to admire your style sometimes though. There's that loud, piercing voice that cuts right through the padded bliss of my headphones when I am studying, which not even Aerosmith can drown. There's the fact that that you occasionally don't wash your hair for a whole week so that I gag when I stand to close to you, now that's an revolutionary way to rebelling against the system And I like how you act slightly pitiful and cute when I'm done cooking, just in case I feel generous enough to share (which I do sometimes, so obviously it works).

The fact remains though, that through no fault of yours, I am annoyed by some things. Like the fact that your dog puked on out carpet two days ago, and I told you about it, and you haven't cleaned it up yet. Instead, you've attempt to hide it with a brochure for "Safari Adventures!". Now, it's very pretty and colorful, and there's something quite exciting about going on a Safari Adventure, but it doesn't change the fact that I know that underneath those smiling faces and elephants is a little puddle of dog puke which is drying right into the carpet. I KNOW it's there. My stomach does a little lurch every time I go near it by accident and I see those smiling people looking at me.

I must admit that I'm not overly fond of our dog. Don’t get me wrong, I usually quite like small fluffy creatures. I even coo at them sometimes. But there's something about your dog, I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's the fact that he takes his gravy-laden food and eats it on the carpet, and you think it's adorable that he likes somewhere soft to lie down on while he drips gravy. Or maybe it's his stubborn refusal to use the dog door and will instead spend hours at a time scratching at the screen doors whining to be let in and out when he feels that he's not getting enough attention. Or maybe it's the fact that he's tipped my dustbin over five times already and shredded the contents of it all over my carpet in my room, once picking the worst possible time of the month to do it. And of course you thought it was funny, and told me about all the times he's done that to your dustbin. And it was because he was feeling unloved, poor dear. And there's the fact that he barks at nothing at all in that high pitching whining bark of his. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Well, that's it for now. I know it's a lot to ask, but if you could perhaps return the surroundings to a state which is close to that of acceptable human cleanliness, you will have my undying gratitude.

Love,

Slinky