Free I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship by Wade Rouse Page A

named her Sweet Pea, after the Project Runway designer.
    Because we’re gay.
    A neighbor had rescued her and thought that we (my husband and I, and Ozzy) would be a good fit.
    The first night in our house she cried nonstop.
    Sweet Pea was always affectionate and well behaved, but the whining cry was so hideous, it sounded as if she were being tortured.
    I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Chihuahua mutt cry, but it’s like squealing tires.
    Only not as melodious.
    Like someone decided to peel out of a driveway then changed his mind and stopped.
    Then decided to peel out again.
    Then changed his mind.
    You get the picture.
    Try listening to that for forty-eight hours.
    I got it, okay?
    Still, I understood why: She was terrified.
    She didn’t know whether she was going to be abused or adored. In essence, she was me right before doing stand-up.
    I immediately felt her pain.
    My husband not so much.
    He wanted her out.
    Fast.
    So, I argued on her behalf.
    â€œShe doesn’t know where she is! She’s scared!”
    My husband shot back, “I don’t think she’s good for Ozzy.”
    I hated to admit he was right, but Ozzy’s always agreeable demeanor had turned into a nonstop vibe of “WTF, Judy?”
    After a very heated argument in the car, I had resigned myself to giving her back.
    But when my husband and I opened the front door, we saw Sweet Pea in the fetal position, curled up against Ozzy, as if she were seeking sanctuary in his fur.
    It was the cutest thing either of us had ever seen.
    I firmly believe that while we were out, Sweet Pea sniffed the down doggie bed, the human-grade kibble, the organic herbal treats, and arrived at the conclusion that living with a gay couple was the equivalent to winning the lottery every hour for the rest of her life.
    I’m positive the position we found her in was planned.
    And it worked.
    My husband changed his mind instantly.
    To this date, Sweet Pea sleeps every single night directly on top of my husband’s neck or in the crook of his balls.
    She hasn’t whined since.
    Everyone wants Sweet Pea.
    I’ve seen the most hardened bitter queens melt in her presence.
    A recent dinner guest asked, “What do I have to do to take Sweet Pea home with me?”
    I said she’d have to pry her from my cold dead hands.
    And I mean it.
    Because Sweet Pea has the pleading, doe-eyed look of a pooch in a sixties Keane painting, we’ve endowed her with the foulest, most inappropriate voice ever. She sounds like Paula Deen with Tourette’s syndrome.
    â€œHow y’all doin’, motherfuckers? Where’s my goddamn breakfast, bitch?”
    We admonish her profanity.
    â€œSweet Pea! Is that any way to talk?”
    She responds flippantly, an affirmative in two syllables: “Yayyes.”
    To the uninitiated, we look insane: two grown men speaking as anthropomorphized dogs.
    But lately I’ve discovered that all dog lovers have a dog voice. I know a woman whose dog voice is actually a wordless, nonsensical theme song that can only be described as a musical mash-up of Bewitched and Gilligan’s Island .
    That woman is a district attorney.
    Sometimes, Sweet Pea has doggie nightmares.
    I watch her squirm and twitch convulsively.
    I imagine she’s reliving her former life.
    Not the one as a rescue, the lifetime before that: the one that earned her all the Isaac Mizrahi sweaters and American Apparel hoodies.
    The one where she was a selfless missionary running a leper colony.
    Surrounded by oncoming death and disease, she tirelessly cares for the doomed.
    â€œHow will I survive this? Will there be an end that justifies this ongoing hell? Holy shit, did I just pull off someone’s hand?”
    I wake her up.
    â€œIt’s all right, baby. Daddy’s here. Ssshhh.”
    Momentarily startled, she blinks at me, but then quickly gets her bearings, shakes off the sleep, and takes in her luxurious surroundings.