At 4:16 this morning, or rather from 4:16 to about 4:27, I lay in bed buried in blankets, listening to the tick-tock, tick-tock of the nervous Labrador retriever I�m pet-sitting, the tick-tock of his nails on the wood floors. He was pacing, wanting to go out. I was, as I said, lying in bed, buried in heavy blankets, thinking of all the reasons I charge people to watch their pets, feeling I do not charge nearly enough.

The note left on the kitchen counter contained instructions for the dog�s care. As always, it was deceptively simple. �He loves to play ball, and will expect to play every morning and night.� That is code for, �This dog will stare at you 22 hours a day, whining and pacing with a ball in his mouth, so that you will throw it for his retrieval, as is encoded in his DNA and has been for hundreds of years. And oh, by the way, the other two hours a day he will spend pooping giant piles of horrific mess, piles bigger than some of the other dogs you sit, so please pick those up, as well.�

I know, I know, I bring it on myself. I like this dog, really�he�s sweet, and it�s not his fault that he�s an overgrown behemoth, running to more than a hundred pounds. He has energy to spare, and the long sessions of tennis-ball-chasing did not seem to wear him out in the slightest. Each time he returned the increasingly sloppy ball, I thought, �Well, another couple of throws should do it,� but each time I threw the ball, he lumbered off with no decrease in energy. He foamed at the mouth, gasping and grunting, drooling giant trails of white all over the patio, the ball, and the device designed to pick up and release a ball without having it touch one�s hands. If he weren�t so sweet, I�d have edged toward repulsion.

Some people think I will be glad to house sit for free�some of them know I live on a boat, and imagine I�ll be grateful for a reprieve, as if the boat is perhaps an open dinghy, in which I float around, hiding beneath a drift of newspapers, waiting for someone to take me in. �Would you like to house sit?� one couple asked me, in odd and sympathetic tones, �it�ll get you off that boat for a while.� These people fail to grasp that I enjoy living on the boat, which after all is comfortable and which contains all my perfume and my Three Essential Pens, besides. The reason I charge is to make up for all the time I spend throwing the ball for their unrelenting dog, but also to compensate me for the loss of sleep I experience when their dog, who gives them no trouble at all, decides at 4:16 AM that he must go outside that instant and tick-tocks back and forth on the parquet until I get up to let him out, at which time he insists on playing ball or running into the street.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. I did finally get up and let the dog outside. The cat, I should mention, was perfectly behaved the entire time. �Why can�t you be like the cat?� I asked the dog, my breath forming clouds of resentment in the bitter night air. �The cat sleeps with her head in my cupped hand�the very picture of trust and peace.� The dog tipped his head to one side, a blob of foam decorating his upper lip. He really is a good dog. Here is the cat (see illustration):

ILLUSTRATION

See how good she is? Lying there all attentive and quirky, with her neat coat of black velvet and her musical, birdlike purring? That is the point I was trying to make to the dog, a point which was lost. My feet were freezing to the driveway, so I called the dog and we went back inside, where I realized I�d forgotten to turn on the heat, and then turned it on. I got back into bed to be smothered by the unforgiving, heavy blankets, and cursed the house owner. The quilt was thick and dense and weighty, encased in a thick duvet cover, all of which slowly pressed me down into the mattress, like Giles Corey, pressed to death on suspicion of witchcraft in Salem in� I don�t know, 16-flifty-2, let�s say. Giles Corey would have understood my discomfort, empathized with me. (And yet, what did he do when his executioners demanded a confession? Cried, �More weight!� and so was crushed to death by his own obstinacy and several rock-wielding Puritans.) �More weight!� I called, startling the cat, who registered her dismay in a series of unintelligible meows and chirps. Tick-tock, sigh, went the dog.

As I said, I do not charge nearly enough for my services as house-sitter.

Star of the day. . .Ann Putnam