She’d sit there and tell us she was allergic to dog hair.  She’d take her perfectly folded Daz white hankie out of her bag and pretend to sneeze.  After the bag snapped closed, she would sit there, back against the chair, ready to take flight.

Our dog, a big hairy barker, would sit staring at her.  She would roll on her back, legs in the air. “She wants you to stroke her stomach” my daughter might say, for devilment.  I’d give her a dig and say “behave yourself” through my teeth, trying not to smile.

Mind you, I’ve used some choice names for our dog at times.  Her non-stop barking, at nothing in particular sometimes, drives me insane.  I think she’s a psycho.  To see her when no one else is in the house but me, she is the perfect companion.  Let in all the grandchildren, all six of them aged from two to six years (I won’t count the four month old), the dog’s a lunatic.

We know Aunt Jane hates animals, hates their smell, their hairs on her lovely clothes.  Mind you, she doesn’t like children either.  She doesn’t like me a lot of the time.  If it was a choice of who I had to keep, I’d keep our dog!