The dog needed to go out exactly when I had finally sat down

Dear Delyara, I had the blanket over my legs, the tea in reach, and the feeling of a human being almost at rest. Then the scratching started at the back door. I know it’s ridiculous to resent a dog for being a dog, so I didn’t. I just sat there for one extra second, feeling the exact shape of interrupted relief. That’s all it was. Not cruelty, not drama. Relief interrupted before it had time to become rest. I got up. I opened the door. I stood there in the cold watching him inspect the same patch of darkness he inspects every night. The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes. It still somehow summed up adulthood.