Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter (Reading Group Gold) by Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella

I had never seen one in real life. I peered into the tissue. It looked kind of like a tick, only uglier.
    “I found it on the stretch mats.”
    Ew. “And your manager told you to just throw it away?”
    “Yeah. But I had to tell you.”
    “Thanks, hon.” I went to hug her but thought better of it—a pat on the arm would do. “Well, see ya!”
    “You’re leaving?”
    I nodded and jogged out of there. Fitness is not worth the danger of an insect that sucks your blood while you sleep.
    Beauty is skin deep. Bed bugs burrow under your skin.
    Later on, back at the apartment, I got a little hungry, but the prospect of cooking was less appetizing with the memory of mouse droppings on my kitchen counter still fresh in my mind. I decided that without the dog to worry about, I should take my laptop and go camp out at a café, like writers do in the movies. It seemed more glamorous than my usual writing on the couch in stretch pants.
    I arrived at a nearby coffee shop, appropriately in costume with my shoulder bag and plastic-rimmed glasses, feeling like a romantic comedy might just pop up around me at any moment. I nabbed the last free table and ordered a veggie wrap and an iced tea.
    I was bending down to retrieve my laptop, when an enormous cockroach skittered past just inches from my foot.
    I fled to the counter, where I told the waitress, discreetly and politely, that there was a roach now climbing on the wall, and if she wouldn’t mind, would she please cancel my order?
    Surprisingly, she was surprised.
    “You don’t want the wrap?” she asked in a French accent.
    “No, sorry. I’ve lost my appetite.”
    “Because of the roach?”
    No, because of the weather.
    “Yes, because of the roach.”
    “But it is only in the main room, there aren’t any in the kitchen where we make the food.”
    Of course, roaches wait to be seated. For filthy, prehistoric insects, they’re impeccably well-mannered.
    “Look, no hard feelings, but I don’t want to eat with a roach on the wall.”
    She rolled her eyes and begrudgingly handed me my money. “You know, this…” she paused, presumably to translate the best euphemism, “this problem, this is so with all of New York.”
    No it isn’t.
    Not in my apartment.
    I only have mice.

Accommodating
    By Lisa
    I am always amazed at the lengths people go to to accommodate their pets. Me, especially. Case in point, I own more baby gates than Octo-Mom.
    Why?
    Four dogs and two cats equals five baby gates.
    I’m accommogating.
    Sorry.
    To explain, all of the Scottoline pets get along, except at mealtimes. They don’t like to share their meals.
    They get it from me.
    So when I feed them, I put Ruby The Crazy Corgi and her bowl in her cage, in protective custody. But Peach eyes Little Tony warily as they eat, then starts growling and barking until a dogfight breaks out. It’s not as scary as it sounds, because Cavaliers are small dogs, and their heart isn’t in it, so she just bitchslaps him.
    Literally.
    But still, it’s unpleasant. And since I feed them while I’m eating breakfast or dinner, I have to get up and down during my meal, refereeing while my eggs get cold, which annoys me no end. Not to mention that Penny, my sweet golden retriever, gets so upset she won’t even approach her own bowl. She ends up retreating to her closet, where she mourns Angie and the fun life they used to have, when there were no feisty Cavaliers and plenty of red balls.
    Plus the cats, Mimi and Vivi, have their kibble and litter box in the bathroom, so the dogs have to be kept out of there, and you know why. Guaranteed that if you buy your dogs some pretentious gourmet kibble, they will always look forward to cat, goose, or deer poop. This would lead naturally to the question of who’s dumber, the owner who buys the overpriced dog food or the dog who thinks poop is a side order.
    To me, it’s a toss-up.
    So I need one baby gate to close off the bathroom, and another two to close off the second