I can’t live with that woman anymore. She’s so damned negative. No matter what great thing comes my way, she hounds me with “remember Murphy’s Law” and “nothing good ever lasts” and “don’t count your chickens, even after they hatch, because they still might not make it.”

For her there is no valid reason to hope or try or get excited about anything. Diets don’t work, exercise won’t make me younger, and I’ll only meet some serial killers on those dating sites. No matter how hard I work I’ll never get ahead of inflation; if I invest in stocks and bonds, I can kiss my money goodbye; and I don’t have what it takes to succeed, like talent, looks or connections to people at the top. I don’t know how she gets out of bed in the morning. Probably does it just to ruin my day.

I can’t take it another day. She nags and criticizes. Just like short people, she thinks I have no reason for living and asks why I can’t do anything right (meaning her way). Or it’s when am I ever going to get around to cleaning up this pigsty. “What a piece of work you are,” she throws at me. And she doesn’t mean the Sistine Chapel kind of work. More like bad graffiti.

I can’t deal with that witch in my bed every night. When I am trying to fall asleep, she brings up all the terrible things that she believes will probably happen. Homelessness, terminal illness, terrorist attack in our town. I mean, come on! I pay the rent. I have longevity in my genes. And this town is in the middle of nowhere. What would a terrorist want with a few Midwestern harpies like her?

I won’t put up with that bitch for the rest of my life. She complains about the neighbors, the government, and the weather, continuously. She says she has to vent because she can’t reason with stupid, fight city hall, or harness jet streams. She even fusses after a string of cloudy days that the sun is too bright, and, after a drought, that the rain is too wet. So I remind her it will be plenty dark and dry when it’s all over.

I refuse to be the resident psychiatrist for that psycho. Either she’s suicidal or euphoric; crying over spilt milk or laughing insanely at the futility of it all; paranoid about the people next door or inviting them for dinner. She loves me one minute and despises me the next. Either full of regrets or cursing her bad luck. She’s ashamed of her temper, then patting herself on the back for speaking up to morons.

Oh, she’s a piece of work, that one. Bi-polar, obsessive-compulsive, pessimistic, critical, a cry baby with a bad temper and the bane of my life. I want to break up this unhealthy relationship, but it’s complicated.

She lives inside of me.