MY GRIEVANCES ~*~ misa.beauty

▓ THE OFFICIAL LEDGER OF INJUSTICE ▓

▓▓ WARNING: CONTAINS UPSETTING MATERIAL ▓▓ (it does not) ▓▓

What follows is a complete and honest record of the conditions I endure daily. I have documented everything. I want you to look at these photographs and I want you to really sit with them.

CASE #001 ✿ THE DOOR

severity: CATASTROPHIC ✿ status: unresolved

Misa lying on a pale grey wooden deck seen through a glass door, front legs crossed, looking up at the camera — Photographed by my own family. Through the glass. While I was out there.

There is a machine inside this house that makes cold air. I have felt it. I know it is real. It is the single greatest thing our species has ever been given and it is running, right now, on the other side of this door.

And here is me. Outside. On the warm boards.

Note that somebody was inside, with the cold air, and rather than opening the door they took a photograph of me not being able to get in. That is the part I would like the record to reflect. I was suffering and it was content.

One day I will learn to work a handle and there will be a reckoning.

CASE #002 ✿ THE STARVATION YEARS

severity: TOTAL ✿ status: ongoing, hourly

Misa lying on a wooden deck in a pink bandana with a plush hedgehog toy on its back between her front paws, tongue tip out, looking at the camera — Day 4 without a second breakfast. I have only my hedgehog, and the hedgehog is starting to look edible.

I am fed at approximately 7:00 AM and approximately 5:30 PM. I want you to do the arithmetic on that. There are, by my count, upwards of nine hours in between. Nine. Hours.

In that gap I have nothing. No provisions. No supply drop. Just me, my toys, and a slowly hollowing sensation that my family have chosen to describe as "she's fine, she just ate."

She just ate. Four hours ago. In dog hours that is roughly a calendar year.

Misa lying on a dark wood floor beside a cream armchair, front legs stretched forward, looking up at the camera with a pleading expression — I hold this exact face for 45 minutes until somebody remembers I have a stomach.

Misa lying on a green and gold patterned rug on a pale wood floor, head raised, looking up at the camera with a soulful expression — Twenty minutes since dinner. Nobody has re-fed me. I am on the floor about it.

I have tried everything. The stare. The sigh. The dramatic collapse onto expensive rugs. The standing next to the bowl and looking at the bowl and then looking at the human and then looking at the bowl again, which I consider my strongest work.

Nothing. They just say "aww" and take a picture. My anguish has become content for these people.

Misa sitting on a light wood kitchen floor in front of a stainless steel dishwasher, head tipped up toward the camera with wide eyes — The dishwasher vigil. I hold this post because ONE TIME something fell out of it, and I have never recovered.

Misa on a mesh patio lounger under wooden slats beside a leafy tree, looking up at the camera with the tip of her tongue poking out — This is the face I do when there is food, when there might be food, and — as here — just in case.

CASE #003 ✿ THE POODLE

severity: STRUCTURAL ✿ status: she started it

A small apricot poodle lying with its head on a cream crinkled blanket, one eye open and looking at the camera — My sister. On the good blanket. With one eye open, specifically to check whether I am doing anything.

I have a sister. She is a poodle. I would like to talk about her.

Let me start with the fair part, because I am a fair dog: she was here, she is family, and I do love her. There. That is on the record and it is true and I would like it read out at any future hearing.

Now the rest of it.

The poodle is antisocial. I have spent years attempting to engage this animal in the normal activities of dogs — going places, investigating things, being enthusiastic in a doorway — and she has declined every single time, with a look, as though I have suggested something distasteful.

The poodle is also, and I say this with love, spoiled beyond all reason. She has the good blanket. She has always had the good blanket. When I approach the good blanket she does not move or growl or do anything a normal animal would do — she simply opens one eye, and somebody in another room says “Misa, leave her.”

How does that work? How does she do that? She has never once been the one in trouble. In this entire house I am the only party who has ever been asked to leave anybody.

Misa lying on a wooden bench beside a small apricot poodle with handmade cardboard signs reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY and TIANA — And then, at mommy’s birthday, they gave her **her own line of text.** With an arrow. I was not given an arrow.

We do not always get along. I want to be honest about that rather than pretend, the way this family pretends, that the two of us “just have different energies.”

We have different energies in the sense that I have energy and she has a blanket.

CASE #004 ✿ MR. HEDGEHOG & THE WASHING MACHINE

severity: PERSONAL ✿ status: I am watching her

Misa lying on a woven jute rug seen from above, her nose nearly touching a plush hedgehog toy — Mr. Hedgehog and I, at rest. He smells correct. That is the entire point of him.

This is Mr. Hedgehog. He is mine. He has been mine since he arrived and he will be mine until there is nothing left of him but a damp opinion.

Periodically, mommy decides he "smells." Of course he smells. That's the whole feature. He smells of me. That is the entire value proposition of Mr. Hedgehog and she wants to put him in a machine and take it off him.

Each time he comes back he is clean and fluffy and completely wrong and I have to spend a full week restoring him at considerable personal effort.

▸ SUMMARY OF OUTSTANDING COMPLAINTS

#	COMPLAINT	SEVERITY	STATUS
001	Door exists between me and the cold air machine	CATASTROPHIC	Unresolved
002	Nine (9) hours between meals	TOTAL	Ongoing
003	Poodle has the good blanket, permanently	STRUCTURAL	She started it
003b	Poodle given her own line + arrow on a birthday sign	PERSONAL	Noted forever
004	Mr. Hedgehog laundered without consent	PERSONAL	Watching her
005	The running (see: the evidence)	MEDICAL	Daddy denies it
006	The sun, generally	EXISTENTIAL	Nobody in charge
007	Milk described as "for coffee"	RESOLVED	I drank it
008	Brown truck man: 0 snacks in 6 years	CHRONIC	Still showing up
009	The word "later"	CRUEL	Means nothing to me
010	No confirmed role in mommy’s wedding	PENDING	I wore the veil

▸ APPENDIX ✿ NOT A GRIEVANCE

In the interest of balance, I want to end on the one member of this household against whom I have no complaint whatsoever.

Misa in a pink bandana lying on a deck with her muzzle resting on a black cat's head, the cat squinting and looking aside — My associate. She has never once told on me.

I groom her for free. She has never returned the favour. I have decided this is fine.

The cat and I are fed the same amount, at the same times, and I have thought very hard about whether to file on that, and I have decided no. She earns it. She works the fence line. She has never once opened one eye at me and got me in trouble for it.

If the poodle is reading this — and she can’t be, she would have to get up — that is what a colleague looks like.

▓▓ IN CONCLUSION: I HAVE A WONDERFUL LIFE ▓▓ BUT ALSO SEE ABOVE ▓▓

✎ LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I am extremely well cared for. I have a couch, two devoted people, a cat who is my closest colleague, a poodle sister I love and litigate against in equal measure, a hedgehog, several sticks, and a bandana in my colour. Nothing on this page should be taken seriously by anybody, especially not by anyone who might come and take me away from here, because I would like to stay. I would just also like a snack.