“Good morning,” she said. Or maybe she didn’t say it today, who knows?  Either way, all I hear when I see her is, “Go fuck yourself.”

That’s what I hear. Day in and day out, whatever she says, all I hear is “Go fuck yourself.’

It started 9 or 10 years ago when I invited her and her dog, Emma to come live with us, asking only one thing in return. I asked her not to feed Emma in the basement, where she chose to reside. There were a number of good reasons for that the request, but the most compelling reason should have been that I made it. It is, after all my house and she would be living there rent free.

If you think that would have been the least she could have done in return, you would be wrong.

In general, I find talking with her an exercise in futility. She only resorts to the truth when no other option exists and she takes no personal responsibility for anything. Whatever it is, she doesn’t know, she didn’t see it, didn’t hear it or didn’t do it because she doesn’t know how. If she repeatedly downloads the same virus onto her computer, it’s not her fault, it’s the virus’s.

I try not to think about the time she tried to sell me a handful of costume jewelry for $6,000 or the time she sent me a long email about beating me with a baseball bat.

Anyone who knows dogs or has a modicom of common sense knows that dogs don’t shit where they eat. It’s a common saying. It only made sense to have Emma eat where the other dogs in the house ate and develop the same habits of elimination. Dogs are pack animals and learn from other members of the pack. This does not require the expertise of Cesar Millan, it’s wired into them at the molecular level.

I didn’t ask for a trial period. I asked that no food or treats be fed to the dog in the basement. PERIOD. There should be no reason to give treats to a dog in the basement unless you were teaching that dog tricks down there, which she wasn’t.

Not with her busy schedule.

What’s the point of feeding your dog in your bedroom, other than to make sure she stays with you? We don’t feed our dogs in the bedroom. But she was determined to do whatever she wanted to do, no matter how it turned out, no matter how it fucked everyone else.

She said that Emma wouldn’t eat upstairs. Besides the fact that that is a lie, it’s also a ridiculous claim. It’s a lie because we see Emma eating in the kitchen all the time. It’s a ridiculous claim because Emma’s a dog. She’s going to eat where the other dogs eat. She’s not going to starve when she has to pass by a bowl of food several times a day.

So now Emma eats downstairs and shits upstairs. I don’t blame the dog, I blame the selfish asshole who works diligently at being the worst house guest ever.

Of course, since there’s food downstairs, our dogs have to keep going down there. One thing dogs love is other dogs’ food. And treats.

Another thing she continually lied about. “I’m not giving them anything.”

Well, of course you are you lying…..liar. What are they constantly going downstairs for, help using Windows 8? I had to install metal strips on the doors to the basement because Charlie was scratching grooves in the wood to get downstairs. For treats.

It boggles my mind that she doesn’t get how fucking insulting it is to tell people ridiculous lies all the time, implying that they’re too stupid to know they’re lies.  My mother always did that, acting like being indignant made her more believable.

Anyway, because she wouldn’t let Emma eat with the other dogs and go out when they go out, she is constantly walking up and down the stairs and out the kitchen door, causing our dogs to bark and wake us up in the middle of the night.

And up and down and back and forth.

Because she gives Emma treats when she returns to the basement instead of immediately after she shits outside, Emma just want’s to go up and down the stairs.

She stole from me the peace and tranquility I deserve in my own house but, of course she sees herself as the victim.  She’s always the victim. I am the bad guy, which may be why God punishes me by squishing dog shit between my toes.

It may be too late to re-train that poor dog now, but she wouldn’t even try.  Emma could have had a great life, hanging out with the other dogs, doing the things that doggies do. Maybe that’s the problem, maybe she didn’t want Emma hanging out upstairs with the other dogs, so she kept feeding her in her bedroom to keep her down there.

It didn’t matter to her that she would be making her own dog’s life miserable, even though she claims to be a dog lover. Maybe that only applies to other dogs.

She says her dog trainer friends tell her that not feeding Emma downstairs wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe that’s true now and maybe it isn’t. We’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter what her so-called or imaginary experts say, they’re not the ones cleaning up dog shit or having to pay to replace the carpet.

When it comes to cleaning up the dog shit, she doesn’t do much of that, either. She watched my wife clean bloody diarrhea from the entire basement floor. She handed my wife a doggy product that she said would work better than the one my wife was using. To clean up Emma’s shit.

She should know that if something (fatal) happened to me, my wife would sell our house in a heartbeat and move to Colorado. She will not be thinking about a room for her and Emma. Nor will there be room for her and Emma when we dump our house and move to a smaller, more manageable place.

Living in somebody’s basement-anybody’s basement-is not the greatest thing in the world, but it could’ve been an easy gig. All she had to do was the one thing I asked her to do and that is to NOT feed her dog in the basement.

I feel badly for her situation, but I’m done feeling sorry for her. She’s her own worst enemy, she always has been.

Why should I let her fuck up my life when her major contribution to our household is to tell me, day after day to go fuck myself?

And, yes, she’s still feeding Emma downstairs. And Emma’s still shitting upstairs.

While she may think I’m an asshole, you may be wondering how it isn’t that I haven’t thrown her out on her ass yet.  I often wonder the same thing, myself.