There's this dog on our street

who very well might have been born the year Jason and I started dating. She might be older. We don't know her name, only that she's female. She lives in the house that lords above ours, high on the hill and has to hump down the driveway on thin legs and bony hips. Her eyes are black buttons and she's missing patches of fur--kids can honestly describe her as the color pink. Her blocky head is oversized and her neck doesn't hold it well, so she always looks guilty. She has large skin growths, the most notable one swings from her chest and is the size of a hand.

When contractors see her, they say, "My God!" They have all been dog-lovers and always whisper in stricken tones, "That dog is old."

The dog is a total pain in the ass.

Every day she makes her appearance to shit in our yard. Or our neighbor's yard. Or if she can't make it across the street, then it's directly on the street so that cars drive through it and kids swerve around it on their bikes. A couple days ago, Nigel slipped on it, creating a big brown smear. The dog is average-sized, but her production is impressive, perhaps from an ineffective digestive tract.

Whenever I see her, I have to wave my arms because she cannot hear. She's timid and doesn't trust strangers. If I'm successful, she moves her frail body onto the base of her driveway and relieves herself there before wending her way up to the safety of her home. It feels like a sheepish victory because the dog is old but I really don't like dealing with her craps.

Three days ago, Jason tried to squeeze one final trash bag into our garbage bin. He was unsuccessful and decided to lay it outside next to the bin. Among other things, the trash contained the remnants of a celebratory meal that we had mistakenly forgotten to compost and handfuls of tissues that I had used to blow my nose after my fourth infusion. The next day when I took out the recycling, I noticed the trash had been eaten through, garbage strewn about. And then I saw the telltale sign of our daily visitor.

"Oh no," I breathed.

The old dog's crap was everywhere. On top of the garbage, to the side of it and a trail leading out. To assist her digestion, she might have only been fed canned dog food for the past 10 years. But the evening before, she had had a buffet of spoiling crab and salmon, ketchup with horseradish, spicy broccoli, chocolate pudding and my filthy toxic tissues.

So to Jase, on what was supposed to be a quiet and uneventful night: happy 17th. Our wedding anniversary dinner might have just been the old dog's last.