SOPH SCUM

I’m putting the just-laundered bedclothes back on our bed when my hand runs across the duvet and finds a wet spot.

Humph. The dryer must have done a crummy job. I set the damp duvet aside and move to yank on the fitted sheet, which, incidentally, I can never get to fit properly. When I come to the spot on the bed where I’d discovered the damp on the duvet, my jaw drops, and I stop, my hands hanging mid-air. In the same locale where I’d found that our dryer’s work was sub-par—there, on the bare mattress I so adore, was a single, sand-dollar-sized, yellow wet spot. I bend over to sniff it. Pee.

I head for The Husband’s office, dragging the duvet behind me as Lynus would.

“Hey! Hey!”

“What?”

“You washed this duvet, right?”

“Yeah.”

“She peed on it.” I indicate the cowering canine at my feet.

“What?!”

“At first I thought that it was just the dryer not doing its job, but then I smelled it. It’s pee. She did it. Unless you did . . . ”

“I didn’t.”

“Fetchin’ incredible.”

The dog is house trained. She has a dog door at home, and at my parent’s house, she rings a bell and waits by the door when she wants to go out (which is way too often for actual bathroom-business; she just wants to play). She sleeps on our bed with us every night and often naps there during the day. She has never peed on our bed.

Why, oh, why did she choose this one day, when the duvet was just washed, to relieve herself on our linens? Vindictive little beast. Five minutes earlier I’d told her that I would not be throwing the stuffed lobster again—so Scram! So I can pretty much guarantee that she peed on the bed out of spite. Then again, she did do it on The Husband’s side of the bed. That could have been on purpose, and in that case, I have no explanation for her deviant behavior.

One thing’s for sure, I am not putting plastic sheets on my bed.