Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(54)

“Ber-r-r-t, Ber-r-r-t,” I said, in my best impersonation of Mama, demonstrating for Allison the challenges I faced as a single parent.

    “He resents me for being away all the time,” I told her.

“Or he just doesn’t remember you.”

“Well, then he’s pretty dumb.”

“Don’t say that,” Allison said.

“Oh, please. He’s a dog; he can’t understand me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know it, because of that expression on his face,” I said. “He’s dumb. Talk about old injuries. Every day is like Groundhog Day. It’s like he’s permanently concussed.”

“Well, I’m just telling you, words have meaning,” Allison said.

“Well, then in five minutes, I’ll tell him he’s smart. He won’t even remember this conversation.”

Those weren’t the only challenges the new dogs posed. It was impossible to get any lingerie on Bert’s body. Weeks of making inroads, of sleeping in bed with him, of taking him on walks and in car rides—all of it would fly out the window the minute I tried to pick up one of his paws and slip it through the shoulder strap of something silky. Bernice wasn’t obsessed with Mama, so I set my sights on her, which ultimately resulted in her playing dead anytime she saw me coming. Bert doesn’t play dead, because Bert is mentally dead.

I even made a play for Mama’s seven-year-old son, Guillermo, who comes with Mama to my house on school holidays and when he’s sick. I started luring him to my bedroom with videogames and candy, just to demonstrate that I could beat her at her own game. This became an issue when Guillermo started following me throughout the house, wanting to play games all day long. I ended up giving him a hundred dollars to just play the videogames without me.



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Three months into having the dogs, Tanner took Bert to the vet and reported that Bert had gained twelve pounds, weighing in at a whopping seventy-two pounds.

We were given strict instructions when we got the dogs back from their six-month training program that no treats were allowed, because Bert had lost twenty pounds while at training camp and needed to keep the weight off.

“Bert’s butt has gotten huge,” Brandon confirmed. “Someone asked me the other day if he had implants.”

That’s when I connected the dots: Mama was sneaking Bert food in order to ingratiate herself. For the first time in my adult life, I was the one who had stuck to the rules, and Mama was working undercover. When I confronted her in Spanish, she told me she couldn’t understand what I was saying. When I confronted her in English, she lashed out.

“Me? Oh, no, Little Mama,” she told me. “I don’t give him treats. I stick to the schedule. Do jew?” she asked, pointing her finger at me, her other hand on her hip.

“No!” I replied. “Not ever.”

“La verdad?” she challenged me. “What about all the cookies and chocolate jew eat in bed all the time, Little Mama?” Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen, with Bert following close behind. The two of their asses walking away from me looked like two giant locomotives leaving the station on twin tracks.

    “Little Mama” is what Big Mama calls me when she’s correcting my Spanish or telling me how Bert prefers to be petted. In these moments she is talking down to me, but because of all the things that Mexicans have had to suffer since Trump got elected, I feel it’s my duty to take one for the team.

Bert had been looking more voluptuous, but by then his fur had started growing back, so it was hard to tell what was fluff and what was reality.

“So, he’ll need to go on a diet?” I asked Tanner, disappointed.

Tanner told me they gave Bert a thyroid test and it came up negative, but that the vet also noted that thyroid tests often deliver false negatives.

Honestly. What is one supposed to do with that non-information? Isn’t medicine science? Isn’t science pretty solid, until we find out that the most recent studies have debunked whatever theory we have been living with as fact for the past forty years? For fuck’s sake, when am I ever going to get a straight answer from a vet?

“They also said that Bert is most likely eight years old, but that Bernice seems younger.”

“I thought they were from the same litter!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air.

“They are,” Tanner confirmed. “I think we need to find a new vet. Again.”

“Well, get a DNA test anyway.”

Tanner thought I meant that he should get a DNA test, but that didn’t come to light until weeks later, when he told me he was 81 percent Dutch, and we still didn’t know if the dogs were brother and sister—or, for that matter, if they were even Chow Chows.

    “They are brother and sister,” Mama chimed in that day. “As a mama, I know such things. Bert is just too fat right now. The weight adds age.”

“Well, I wonder how that fucking happened?”

“Amigas, come on,” Brandon interjected. “We’re all on the same team here.”

“Estamos nosotros?” I asked Mama, cocking my head to one side.

“For jears, I watch all jour doggies in this house give jew all the love and attention anyone could want. They love their mama. Chunk never loved me the way he love jew. No matter how much we play, he never love me like he love jew. Tammy, okay, but she was not my baby. Bert is my baby. He love me, and I love Bert.” Then, in perfect English, she said, “Doggies are not a zero-sum game.”