Furthermore, it is my emphatic and unequivocal position that I have no recollection of putting Bob Stiner’s dachshund in a carpenter’s vise Saturday, November 5, 2016, on or around 11:48 p.m. at a party at the Stiner residence, where excess alcoholic beverages were served and consumed in full accordance with the host’s wishes.

That was part of the letter my attorney sent to Stiner’s attorney after I found out he was suing. My attorney, a neighbor who doesn’t keep pets, said I didn’t have anything to worry about. He also said he wouldn’t charge full fee because technically he specializes in divorce but mostly because he dislikes Stiner’s politics and thinks even less of his dog.

My attorney seems nonchalant about the lawsuit; so nonchalant he doesn’t even want to know if I did it.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “As long as you have no recollection of it and nobody saw you.”

Despite how silly this all sounds, I’m frightened. I’ve been having trouble sleeping and I’ve lost my appetite except for dessert. I mean, what if I’m found guilty?

My attorney told me to think about it in terms of algebra:

“A, nobody saw you do it. B, you don’t admit doing it. C, they can’t prove you did it. Therefore, if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. You didn’t do it.”

My wife thinks the whole thing is crazy.

“Why don’t you just own up to it?” she said. “Be a man. You were drunk and it’s a miserable little dog.”

“Did you see me do it?” I asked.

“Of course not, or I would have stopped you.”

In that case, I told her, it was all a matter of algebra.

“If you didn’t do it,” she said, “where did you get those bite marks on your hands?”

I told her certainly not from her and immediately regretted saying it.

This entire business has been hard on my wife.

My attorney assures me the case will never go to court. He says Stiner just wants to embarrass me. He says we can bury the case with motions and countermotions and Stiner will have to spend a fortune. He says Stiner is a blowhard and has the worst landscaping on the block. I don’t know. His azaleas are always nice.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the lawsuit hadn’t blown up on social media, but maybe that’s a good thing. I needed to shut down all those time-sucking accounts anyway. It’s scary the things people are putting out there now and how much disinformation gets passed off as fact.

The other night I was lying in bed trying to sleep when my wife came in to get something and again suggested that I call Stiner and apologize. “So we can all move on.”

I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about one of my friends in third grade, Stuey Palkamp. One day Stuey came to school and announced that his parents had bought him a zebra. This was in Zanesville, Ohio. Everyone asked if he would bring it in that Friday for show and tell. He said he certainly would. Friday came around and Stuey showed up at school with only his lunch box. When everybody demanded an explanation, he said the zebra had developed a rare skin disease and for a while, anyway, had to be kept away from sunlight in the basement of his house. He wasn’t sure how long that would be.

At dinner that night, I told my parents the story. I asked if Stuey really had a zebra with a skin problem. “If Stuart has a zebra,” my mother replied, “a rash is the least of its problems.” My father said it just went to show that a lie was as good as the truth if you could get someone to believe it.

In his suit, Stiner claims that I was “thoroughly” inebriated and “became incensed when the victim gently licked the defendant’s shoe and innocently nuzzled the defendant’s wife’s leg, whereupon he lured the 8-pound member of our family into the basement workshop and willfully restrained him in a steel vise, which he proceeded to tighten beyond the limits of decency.”

Thank heaven the idiotic creature wasn’t injured. I would probably be facing a firing squad for that.

I found a note today in the mailbox from Stiner. He acknowledged that things had gotten out of hand and that while he thinks what I did was reprehensible, he’s willing to ditch the lawyers and drop the suit if I will formally apologize and pay for the workshop carpet cleaning. “We’re all just thankful,” he closed, “that Hurricane seems to have come through this relatively unscathed.”

I called my attorney.

He suggested we countersue.

I said, look, the dog did slather all over me and hump my wife’s leg, but I’m not sure about any countersuit.

He said I was passing up a golden opportunity but that was fine with him. He also said my wife had texted him to please call her as soon as possible and wondered if I knew what that was about.

A few nights later I was sitting up in bed watching post-election coverage and eating cookies when my wife walked in. She’s been sleeping in the guest room lately on account of me being up all night.

“I can’t believe what’s happening to our country,” I said.

“You still won’t own up to it, will you?” my wife asked.

I didn’t answer. All I could think about was Stuey Palkamp down there in his dark basement, playing with his funny-skinned zebra.