We give up.

I hope the dogs like living in a van.

from the desk of Miss Jennifer A. Lancaster An open letter to the dogs, Although I don't blame you for your behavior with the squirrel, I am holding you accountable for your actions Sat.u.r.day night.

Let's be clear about one thing-your daddy and I don't have a lot of people who like us. So when we're able to convince a few of our handful of friends to come over for a barbecue, we expect you to be on your best behavior.

"Best Behavior" does not include the following: Head-b.u.t.ting Angie so hard that you split her lip.

Using your collective hundred and sixty pounds to pin Carol down on the couch while you lick her stupid (especially offensive considering your penchant for "salad tossing").

Plowing into the screen with such force that you sent the entire door crashing into Jen, which then almost knocked her over the side of the porch.

Again, we don't have that many friends and we'll have even fewer should you accidentally kill them in your zeal to shower them with affection.

Best, Mumma P.S. I shall be sending your daddy a note under a separate cover detailing my issue with him delaying dinner by almost three hours when he set his shorts on fire.

P.P.S. Perhaps he'll listen to me the next time I say he's using too much lighter fluid. And regardless of your behavior, at least you two didn't set your pants on fire, which is more than I can say for your daddy.

To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work From: Subject: i got all my sisters with me Good morning, Oh, yes, they're at it again.

Setting: My kitchen, Sat.u.r.day morning, on the phone.

Dad: h.e.l.lo?

Me: Hey, Dad, what's happening?

Dad: Not much. I'm getting ready to take your brother Bruno for a walk. (FYI, Bruno is their dog. This has led to many protracted family tree discussions with my parents that if Bruno is my brother, is the dog then an uncle to my brother's children and my dogs, because I am their mother, or are all the dogs cousins somehow?) (I wish I could claim that alcohol was a factor in these conversations.) Me: I hoped to see you guys this weekend, but I don't want you coming up until I get paid. Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually take you to dinner? That way you and Mom wouldn't have to arm wrestle over whose turn it was. (After forty-two years of marriage, my parents still attempt to trick each other into picking up the tab. My dad is notorious for ducking out of store lines right before it's time to pay, thus sticking my mother with the obligation, while my mom is famous for forgetting to grab her credit card when she changes purses.) Dad: Good. If she's not paying, let's go somewhere she doesn't like. How about Gene & Georgetti? I'll never forget the time we were there and Dan Rostenkowski joined us at our table. But we can't go next weekend. It's the NFL draft and I need to be here for it.

Me: If they're looking for seventy-year-old men with bad knees, I'm sure you'll go in the first round. Hey, where's Mom? I want to say hi. Is she there?

Dad: Nope. She already left for your brother's house. By the way, she's not speaking to me again.

Me: Now what? (The key to my parents' successful forty-two-year marriage is that they've spent twenty of these years giving each other the silent treatment over major offenses like Dad using real b.u.t.ter on the vegetables or Mom letting Todd have all of Dad's $15 socks.) Dad: We got into a fight over who'd be more important historically-Pope John Paul or Winston Churchill. She said the Pope was a great humanitarian and I said without Churchill we'd all be speaking German.

Me: If we put video cameras in your house, people would pay to watch you guys.

Dad: Okay, then. Next time your mother speaks to me, I'll tell her you called. Have a good weekend.

Me: Bye, Dad.

After I hung up the phone I couldn't stop snickering about how silly my parents are. How could I have been sp.a.w.ned from such patently ridiculous people? Of course, three hours later I stopped talking to Fletch (and had to sit on my clenched fists) when he wrongly claimed the s.e.x Pistols were the Monkees of punk rock.

On the bright side, at least I can safely say there's no chance that I'm adopted.

TTFN,.

Jen

Maisy and Me: Life and Love with the World's Most Spoiled Dog I'm dreaming about the salty tang of a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. There's a plate of them in front of me, crisp and golden with just the right amount of spice, and I want them desperately but I'm having trouble getting to them. They're so close to me that I can smell them, yet they're out of my reach for some reason. I feel myself pitching forward, stretching and angling, and just about the time I'm near enough to take my first bite, I wake up when Maisy kicks me in the mouth with a corn-chip-scented foot. I groan and try to shove her onto Fletch's side of the bed, but when Maisy sleeps she turns from pit bull into a wet carpet, making her as heavy and difficult to move as depleted plutonium.

This sleeping in the bed with us business isn't new. A couple of years ago when we went from our penthouse in Bucktown to the mean streets of Sucktown1 we had to disa.s.semble the dogs' crates on moving day. Exhausted from ascending stairs and descending a lifestyle, we didn't put their crates back together, instead allowing the dogs to roam free during the night for the first time. Because Loki is a good boy, he immediately settled into a nest of pillows across the room and slept quietly. Maisy, on the other hand-and despite having been crate-trained for almost a year-peed on every new rug in the house, then ate and subsequently threw up half a pizza box before demanding entry into our bed and diving under the covers.

And she's been there ever since.

For days we tried to coax her back into her crate, or, barring that, a dog bed, but she wasn't having any of it. We later read that once a bully finds something she likes, such as sitting on the couch, she will spend the rest of her life attempting to replicate that action. No matter how strong your will is, hers? Is stronger. Now she sleeps in the bed, under the covers, spooned with Fletch, and yes, it's more than a little disconcerting when I lean over in the dark to kiss him good night, only to connect with a cold, wet muzzle.

In addition to needing to move for myriad neighbor-related reasons, we've got to find a new place so we can have a room large enough to accommodate a king-sized bed. I'm tired of losing the Battle of the Bully and the Queen Bed and sleeping in the office. As a van by the river simply won't do, we continue with our Hunt for Lease October, much to my chagrin. (If there's such a thing as heaven and h.e.l.l, I'm pretty sure I'll be spending eternity riding in the backseat of some broker's smoky Ford Taurus, looking at an endless loop of apartments filled with Harvest Gold appliances, tiny closets, and no fewer than five flights of stairs.) We have yet another brokerage appointment today so I grudgingly get out of bed when the alarm sounds. I throw on my bra and a pair of slippers and go downstairs to start morning duties. First, I dump out the drip bucket in the kitchen. We've discovered that the occasional sprinkles of ceiling water are in fact condensation from the air conditioner, which, while not exactly sanitary, is a d.a.m.n site better than the sewage from before.

I open a couple of tins of Friskies to stop the cats from yowling. The way these creatures carry on, you'd think they were starving despite their 24/7 access to a tower of dry kibble. The truth is they're all so fat I have to a.s.sist them onto the counter, where they circle around the plate of wet food like spokes on a wheel. I lift them all and they begin to gorge, energizing themselves for a long day of sharpening their claws on the chenille couch and trying to trip me on the stairs.

Next up I start the coffee, because if I don't I'll get similar histrionics from Fletch. I wash out the dogs' dishes and give them clean, cold water and I pour in dry food, topped with a can of Science Diet. I made the mistake of giving Maisy some at my parents' house once. G.o.d forbid we don't have it in the house now, because I cannot take a day of her sitting in front of her bowl, grunting and yipping until I serve her exactly what she wants. Before I call everyone down for breakfast, I open all the curtains in the living room, checking the patio for Winky.

Winky, thusly named because of his permanent squint, is a twee little reddish-brown2 squirrel so darling and cute I'd want to make him soup or perhaps carry him in my pocket if I didn't hate him with every fiber of my being. Ounce for ounce he's more evil than bin Laden, and I actively pray for his demise. You wouldn't think four pounds of puffy tail could inspire such pa.s.sion, but that's where you'd be wrong. Every day he sits just on the other side of our gla.s.s door, waiting for seeds to magically fall out of our bird feeder. In so doing, he causes the dogs to lose their minds. They've already yanked down a set of curtains and torn $400 worth of custom mini-blinds3 trying to claw through the gla.s.s to get at him, while he lounges just out of reach, so relaxed it's as though he were hanging out in a Parisian cafe reading Le Monde with his orange presse and croissant. Other than the house actually catching fire, there's nothing more distracting while trying to write than two dogs barking their heads off, running up and down three flights, and hurling themselves at windows.

Unfortunately, whenever I try to chase Winky away, one of the neighbors manages to walk out at the exact time I'm brandishing a broom, shouting, "Oh, I will give you something to gobble. Eat straw, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" That said, it's not as if they didn't already hate me after I went all Sean Penn on them during the Tracy debacle, so at this point I guess it doesn't much matter.4 I flip on the news to watch Shepherd Smith report live from New Orleans about the postHurricane Katrina devastation, but before I can even take my favorite Cisco-logo mug out of the cabinet, the dogs have inhaled their breakfast and want to go outside. Now.

As I hunt for p.o.o.p bags and truss them up in heavy canvas leashes and stainless pinch collars, I think again of how much I'd like a house with a yard. Right now taking the guys for a spin around the block in the outfit I slept in isn't so bad because it's still summer. But there's nothing worse than getting out of a warm bed at six a.m. and putting on layers of sweatpants and sweaters, followed by a coat, scarf, gloves, hat, and boots in order to walk the dogs in the icy darkness, only to be yanked clean off my feet the second they spot another animal, be it dog, cat, rat, or, G.o.d forbid, squirrel.

Some people fantasize about threesomes or winning the lottery-in my daydream, I see myself in flannel pajamas and thick socks, standing in a bright doorway, mug of coffee in hand, while Maisy and Loki gambol predawn through freshly fallen snow. I love the idea of a private, fenced yard where the dogs can run and play and not get all distracted by the smells of the thousand other creatures that were there before them. I bet not even a ride in the car to Dairy Queen for cups of soft-serve would make them happier than their own little doggie park. The great irony here is we have a gated patio, but the condo n.a.z.is dish out fines to anyone letting their dogs relieve themselves on their own private property. Sure, I don't like walking the dogs, but not $100 worth.

Leashes firmly attached to my arm, the dogs and I explode out the door, as usual. Unfortunately, in the ten seconds it's taken them to eat, Winky has returned and the dogs dislocate my shoulder lunging at him. He squawks his demonic little squirrel laugh and scampers up a tree to taunt them from a safe distance.

Since the beasts are now in a lather, they aren't content just to take their usual lap around the block. Oh no, they want full-on "walkies," which sucks because I'm still in my V-neck and cutoff jammie pants with the dancing hamburger, hot dog, and French fry print. Although I'm okay with the hateful neighbors seeing me in what I sleep in, roaming the entire 'hood, where I have to pa.s.s people waiting for the public transportation that will take them to their jobs, is another story.

As we walk, I hobble because I hurt my back at the grocery store earlier this week when I slipped by the front door. Were I to choose to take action, I'd probably have a lucrative lawsuit on my hands since the incident was caught on the security camera. Unfortunately, before exiting the car I donned a produce bag from the fruit market to protect my hair from the rain. Fletch declared, "You appear to be wearing a giant condom on your head." I shot back, "Yeah, but my hair will be dry and you wish you had this kind of self-esteem." And then I'm sure the folks in the Jewel's security office laughed their a.s.ses off as the chick with the giant prophylactic skidded on the broken bottle of Italian dressing and flew a.s.s-over-teakettle, landing in a near-perfect split.

I fear that someday while eating pork chops in front of the television, we'll see this video on the Fox special When Fat Girls Fall Down.

I continue walking hamstrung behind the canine Teds Kaczynski and Bundy all the way past the spot where I like to pick wild sunflowers.5 Normally this is a good, long const.i.tutional, yet these rotten dogs still aren't satisfied with our circuitous route. Our endless perambulation continues and all I can think of is how I would kill for a fenced yard right now.

The dogs drag me over to a little wooded area that banks up from the expressway. With its dense pine trees, green gra.s.s, and mountains of garbage, it looks like a lovely place for a picnic were one perhaps a crack dealer, prost.i.tute, or of the homeless persuasion. As we proceed, the dogs are practically crossing their legs knowing the walk is over the second they relieve themselves. Under one of the pine trees, I notice an abandoned magazine, so I pick up what turns out to be the January 1991 issue of Honcho-a gay p.o.r.n magazine. Hmm, I think, I guess my neighbors had a picnic here.

I open it and begin to thumb through the pages. I'm standing in this gra.s.sy spot until the dogs just go already, so I figure I should have something to look at. As I scan photo after photo, I realize I'm always using "gay p.o.r.n" as a punch line in my writing, yet until this very moment, I've never actually seen any. And...wow. All I can say is that being in a gay men's p.o.r.nographic magazine requires careful shaving. A lot of careful shaving.

I briefly debate taking the magazine home and stuffing it in Fletch's computer bag, but then the dogs finally begin to potty in tandem, drawing my attention elsewhere. Business complete, I'm dragged back to the apartment, where Winky sits in the center of our brick patio, perfectly positioned so when the dogs spot him they dislocate my other shoulder.

"Okay, how about, um, see any movie starring Lindsay Lohan?" I ask.

"Yes." Fletch nods. "Yes, I'd rather see any Lindsay Lohan flick, particularly if she's starring in it with a Volkswagen Beetle. Your turn-and keep in mind death is not an option-how about discuss your feeelings6 with your bat-s.h.i.t crazy mother?"

"She's not really bat-s.h.i.t crazy, Fletch. Her mental fitness surpa.s.ses us all."7 "Yeah? Then how come she's afraid of towel bars?"

"I don't know that they scare her, per se; I think it's just that she hates them. Or, maybe her fear is of dirty towels, and if there are no towel bars, you're never in danger of using one that's been soiled, right? Although I'm pretty sure she does fear closet doors. You notice the last time we were there, she'd succeeded in getting rid of all the ones upstairs?"

"I did. This compulsion may be symptomatic, but I'm not sure of what."

"Regardless, I'd probably rather discuss my feeelings."

"All right, I've got one. Debate merits of Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy with Anna Nicole Smith or continue to look for a new apartment?"

We're supposed to leave in the next few minutes to go see yet another broker, but we haven't worked up the will to leave the house. This process is not only taking forever, but it's getting increasingly frustrating. A couple of days ago we saw a place with mauve kitchen appliances, including a mauve Sub-Zero fridge, mauve granite, mauve vanities, and a mauve toilet, sink, and tub.8 The whole joint was lousy with faux-Tiffany gla.s.swork and track lighting and we couldn't get out of there fast enough. I mentioned to the broker this apartment would be the perfect place for Michael Milken to whip off his suspenders and listen to Oingo Boingo on his reel-to-reel, talking on his boot-sized cellular phone, before heading out to a fern bar to drink gin with Patrick Bateman and Gordon Gekko. Then I laughed myself into an asthma attack. In a completely unrelated story, that broker called us yesterday to say she was leaving the country for an undetermined amount of time and was sorry she couldn't work with us anymore.

Today, we're starting over with yet another broker (our seventh or eighth-they've all blurred together) and we're having a difficult time mustering the enthusiasm to see the latest in a string of $24,000/year crack dens.

"Ha!" I laugh. "Can you imagine it? Anna Nicole would be all, 'Me and Sugar Pie wholeheartedly disagree with the notion the ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. And, um, TRIMSPA, baby!' But yes, I would rather have this conversation with her than look at another G.o.dd.a.m.ned place. How about you? Would you rather go now or pick shards of gla.s.s out of the dogs once they finally fly through the window to disembowel Winky?"

"Ooh, good one. But once they kill the squirrel and go to the vet, that's it, the situation's over. I'm going to say 'gla.s.s' because the apartment hunt has no tangible end in sight."

"I agree. Okay, then, would you rather go on another appointment or spend the night at the Superdome?" Fletch gives me a disgusted look. "Too soon?" I ask.

"Yeah. Way too soon."

"Oh, sorry. Well, would you rather ride around in the back of yet another broker's filthy Ford or listen to any sort of music that compares and contrasts the finer qualities of your milkshake?"

"The shake. Definitely the shake."

"Hey, speaking of, you know what would be a cool song? If William Shakespeare came out with a new version of the Baja Boys' 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' He'd call it 'Who Hath Released the Hounds?'" I begin to sing.

"Who hath released the hounds? (woofwoofwoofwoof) "Who hath released the hounds? (woofwoofwoofwoof)"

Fletch looks thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I'd probably rather look at apartments than hear that song ever again. So it's decided. We're going to honor our appointment. Grab your purse, we've got to go."

We're standing in front of a nondescript single-family house with a FOR SALE sign in its tiny front yard. "Um, you know we're looking for a rental, right?" I ask.

"Yes, yes, don't worry," Tina, our newest broker, replies. "They've got the house listed because it's been on the rental market so long. No one wants it and if they don't rent it right now, they're going to have to sell it."

"Ooh, Loser House! Encouraging! I love it already!" I snark.

"Honestly, I wasn't even going to bring you guys, but we were going right by it and the keys have been in my ashtray for a while. Tell you what, we'll take a quick peek and then I promise to take you somewhere better, okay?" the broker pleads. Apparently our reputation precedes us.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Loser House awaits." Tina works the double locks and opens the elaborate Victorian front door into a hallway. The first thing we see is a set of stairs listing distinctly to the right.

"Ha!" I bark. "Loser House is on a slant. Niiice."

But as we get past the front hallway, I notice the place has gorgeous new walnut hardwood floors. They're a deep, rich brown, almost chocolate, with a light sheen. And then we walk through the living room with fully restored millwork and crown molding at least six inches wide. The smooth plaster walls are covered with what has to be a designer paint job. "Hey, this is-this is not so bad," I say slowly.

"Yes, according to my notes, the past owner was an interior designer. I guess she gutted the house and restored everything she could, and replicated those bits she couldn't. That's why the stairs slant-they're original-and so is the hand-tooled banister."

Hmm.

We pa.s.s the first bathroom, about the size of a small coat closet. Everything has been made to scale and the counter is a four-inch-wide strip of mossy green and sparkly gray granite with a teeny metal soup bowl sink tucked in the corner. "Okay, this is kind of cute," I admit.

We pa.s.s into the kitchen, which is no less than eighteen by fifteen feet, wainscoted with cream-colored bead board, and filled with GE Profile appliances, adjustable lighting, and forty-seven cabinets.

Forty. Seven.

Wow.

I wonder how many winegla.s.ses I can store in here?

We go down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, which runs the length of Loser House. There are gla.s.s block windows, a full-sized washer and dryer, and an entire workbench with built-in shelves, drawers, and cabinets, which would allow the man of the house to store his tools in style. Plus, there's a little nook at the front of it where someone could have a place to set up the stupid old futon he refuses to get rid of and hang his horrible seventies lighted Schlitz sign and enough s.p.a.ce in the back that whoever lived here could finally give up the family's storage unit.

We leave the bas.e.m.e.nt, cross through the gourmet kitchen, and climb the slanted stairs. They list to the right, but they're st.u.r.dy, and up close I see the detail of the original lathed woodwork in the newel posts. The master bedroom is big enough for a king-sized bed and there's a small dressing room to the side. All the brand-new, double-paned, flip-out windows are covered with expensive wooden blinds and they're already adorned with expensive decorative iron rods, so the only window treatment needed would be curtains. The walls appear to be covered with caramel-colored suede, but when we touch it we see that it's layers of paper, almost like torn grocery bags, giving it three-dimensional detail.

There's a tiled bath off this bedroom with dual showerheads. I try the water pressure and it's powerful enough to knock the polish off my nails. Down the hall is a second bedroom, done in shades of mint and yellow with the most perfect little mint-yellow bath off of it, housing an entire wall of the same cabinets found downstairs. I pretty much want to lick the whole room.

Fletch and I look at each other. This is way nicer than we expected, at a price we can afford, in a neighborhood that's walking distance to Target. "So, like, did anyone die here?" I ask. At this point, death is not a deal breaker, I'm just curious.

"I find it interesting that's your first question. But, no, no one died here," Tina replies.

"Then what's wrong with it?" Fletch wants to know.