This one's an oldie, but an okayie circa 1993. Boy, was I ever wrong about the second line...

Grandma's Dogs

Have another cinammon imperial.
Grandma's dogs' deaths don't affect me like they used to.
Probably because I've grown not to love them.
Penny was the one she put to sleep for fighting with Sony.
She was a fat half dalmation that could climb a seven foot fence.
Did my mother keep it a secret from me for a while, I can't remember? Yes, I overheard her somehow and cried for a week.
Pip. That was my sister's hamster that my mother replaced with another when he suddenly died of shock. I remember his frozen body lying outside the cage. We thought maybe he escaped and the cats scared him to death. Margaret was not fooled by the switcheroo.

I was a little happy when my Grandma picked me up from Westwood elementary on Fridays because she would bring two or three of her five glamorous dogs that all the kids who were not my friends yearned to pet before she brought me home and followed my mother around our house, helping her make the bed and talking at her as my mother did housework and said Mm hm.

In my entire twenty five years as an Angeleno I've never been a victim of crime except once when someone stole my magnifying glass from my Seventh Grade English display about Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
Not my best friend, Stephanie, nor the two bitchy girls who came to see what was the matter could understand why I had become hysterical.

My family. We have so, so little.We can't take such losses and my mother knows it all too well.