Just when I thought that all was lost, just when I found myself standing above a garbage bin staring down into the abyss of ripped Glad trash bags, chicken bones, and dead cats, I heard a voice, a lull in the wake of my emotional storm. "Coochie, coochie, coo," sang out in my ears. "Don't chump. Don't do it." It was her. It was Charo.

We had a stormy relationship after that. I would clean her bathroom, powder her nose, shine her pumps, take out her trash. She would let me watch her take a crap. Sometimes we kissed. Sometimes we watched Laverne and Shirley. But it was love as it is meant to be.