"Travis, your dog shit in my bed."

My best friend and college roommate Bill Herrin spoke flatly as he repeated the sentence, "Travis, your dog shit in my bed." A normal person would respond to this announcement with an "I'm sorry" or "I will rectify this situation" or even an incredulous "What?!" But not me. In the early 1990s, I was not always a happy person and my self-loathing often translated to defensiveness, temper tantrums, and various other ridiculous behaviors.

"What do you want me to say, Bill?" I demanded.

"Travis, your dog shit in my bed."

"Okay, Bill. I get that. What do you want from me?!"

"Travis, your dog shit in my bed."

At this point I launched into a blind rage. I knew that my dog "Blondie" (a cocker spaniel mix/ love of my life) was guilty, but Bill's flat demeanor twisted my guilt into fury. We lived in a makeshift fraternity house with a dozen other guys- two of whom showed up with puppies on move-in day. There were piles of dog crap everywhere you looked in that house. Truth is, the place was so filthy that dog shit actually enhanced the smell of the place. I knew the dog had to go, but I had to offer some resistance to the idea of parting ways with my baby. I did what felt natural- I threw an ottoman across the room in Bill's general direction.

"Travis, your dog shit in my bed." Bill was so calm. That made me even more upset. I was so enraged that I began losing my tenuous grip on reality. I envisioned ways to disembowel him and feed his entrails to Blondie. How could he be so expressionless? How could he just sit there and repeat that same understated phrase like a meditating Buddhist monk while raw emotion spewed from me like superheated ash from Mt. St. Helens? I had to kill him. But first I had to wash his sheets.

I would have my revenge eventually. Later that same semester, the following took place in our room one night after many, many beers were consumed.

"Travis, you're pissing on my clothes!"

I stared blankly at my shocked and dismayed roommate.

"Travis! You're pissing on my clothes!"

"Shut the f*** up, Bill!"

"Travis!!! You're pissing on my clothes!!!"

Oh, how the tables were turned. This time Bill was the one who was unreasonably angry while I remained unflappable. While he sat up in bed and shouted at me to stop urinating on his clothing, I maintained my singular focus by filling all four of his dresser's drawers. According to Bill, while he continued to yell at me, I calmly finished up and then went back to bed without saying another word.

I did a lot of laundry the next day. Bill and I have been cool ever since. Now that's a good friend. I mean really- he never did my laundry.