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

to my purse and dug out the Doggie Daily, the report card that the day care provided when I picked Mae up.
    â€œLook,” I said to my husband after I opened it and read it. “It says here that she was ‘a big flirt’ today and that she was voted the ‘most uplifting.’ ”
    â€œI saw one from last week around here,” my husband said, scouring the coffee table. “Here it is. Oh. Well, look at that. See? Last week she was voted ‘most affectionate’ and was Dog of the Day. Dog of the Day . No one just hands that out. That’s equivalent to being the Lord of Dogland. Our dog reigned for an entire day. She could have made policy and waged wars with a kennel or pet resort in a neighboring town. She’s like Queen Elizabeth I if the monarch eagerly ate her own eye boogers and became visibly upset when having dirt clods plucked from her belly.”
    â€œUplifting and affectionate,” I stressed. “I mean, that’s pageant-winning qualities, right? Uplifting? Have you ever met an uplifting dog before?”
    â€œShall I introduce you to one?” my husband said, motioning to Maeby, who twitched as she lay on the carpet, sleeping.
    â€œThen why is she getting picked last for the kickball team?” I wondered aloud. “I think we have another Doggie Daily on the fridge!”
    I ran to the kitchen, plucked it off the front, and was immediately disappointed.
    â€œVoted ‘softest hair,’” I reported with a scowl as I walked back into the living room. “ ‘In the world.’ Big deal. What does that even mean? I can’t work with that. That’s just filler. Oh— oh! But in the ‘When I grow up I want to be’ section, it says ‘write a novel.’ Well, how about that? Another writer in the family.”
    I beamed until I looked up and saw my husband’s face.
    â€œWell,” he said simply, “there you go. There’s your red flag. I don’t know how much more you need than that. Clearly, there’s something wrong with the dog.”
    I looked at Maeby, now snoring deeply. How could she have gone from helping transition the new dogs as a “greeter” in day care to the “loner” in what seemed like seconds flat? What could have happened in her little doggie world to spur such a dramatic and sudden change?
    I spent the next week wondering if there had been an incident at snack time, or maybe there was a squabble over a chewy or fur was shed regarding a squeaky toy that had Hamlet’s territory clearly splattered all over it. Perhaps she peed on a spot that had just been freshly marked by Lola or Baci and it wasn’t quite all the way dry yet. Maybe my little mixed dog wasn’t welcome on a playground full of purebreds or dogs with papers. The doggie day-care world suddenly seemed like a cruel and dangerous place, full of politics, revenge, and alliances, like a maximum security rec yard or The Real Housewives of New Jersey . Things, I realized, could get real crazy real easy. You’re Queen Elizabeth one week and then you’re on a reunion show in a low-cut dress, and the next, someone has a copy of your felony arrest record and the camera is panning to your mug shot.
    My poor dog, I thought as I looked at her sleeping. The heights you have soared; the lows you have seen.
    Against my better judgment, my husband took her to day care the next week. I spent the hours worrying that she was hiding out under the slide of the plastic fort, shunned and scorned for the $6.75 I was paying for her to have a fun time. When the clock hit five p.m., I shot out the door to pick her up. When I got there, all of the dog wranglers were in the playroom with their charges, so I pulled Maeby’s Doggie Daily from the bulletin board and opened it up. It was there that I found out Maeby, according to the boxes that were checked, spent the day apparently being “howling hot and”