I want a dog.

I am a dog person, dog people have dogs that live in their houses full-time.

I know what you’re thinking, “you already have a dog who is great and adorable and very much like the dog version of Beyoncé” (see exhibit A). And you would be right. But she is in Ohio. 600 miles away. She doesn’t have a phone to text on and whenever I have my mother put her on the phone to facetime with me she looks away. She doesn’t trust me when I’m inside a box, apparently. She also doesn’t really trust phones since we use them to Instagram her and I believe that she’s of the belief that getting your picture taken steals part of your soul. Which is a tough lifestyle to lead when you’re that fucking cute.

Exhibit A:

See? She’s brilliant.

Nevertheless, she is forever away and I would really love it if the weird sounds I heard in my apartment late at night could easily be blamed on a dog so that I’m not forced to draw my own conclusions (subway rats, burglars, neighbors trying to convert me to Judaism).

All signs point to this being potentially a poor choice. I am never home, I live in a third floor walk up, said third floor walk up does not allow pets, and I cannot have any other kind of pet. I am strictly a dog person.

Let me explain.

We never had pets growing up. Well, other than dogs (like I said, I’m a dog person). My mom hates rodents, and anything under 60 pounds qualifies as a rodent in her eyes. Well, my brother and sister had rabbits at one point but that didn’t end well either. That’s their story to tell.

I have tried to have different variations of animals several times in my life, and it has never ended well.

When I was 15, my friend and I decided it would be a great idea to buy a hamster from Wal-Mart because we were adults and could obviously care equally for a shared hamster (yeah right, we didn’t even have driver’s licenses). We were drawn to this specific hamster because it was trying to escape from the confines of it’s Wal-Mart lifestyle and all the other useless hamsters (in retrospect this was probably the last hamster anyone should be trying to buy as it obviously had behavioral issues. But then, so did we.) So we bought it and bought a house and food and all of the other things you need for a hamster.

It peed on her in the car on the way home. This relationship was doomed.

We tried to love it, we really did. Mostly my friend did, since it had to be kept at her house.

But once it became time to clean out the cage, we were done with that little asshole. He was nothing but trouble and he was no fun.

So we did what any pair of 15 year-old’s would do, we set him free in the neighbor’s yard. To be clear, it was the nicest yard on the street. But yes, I know, it was a bitch move.

People have always tended to like us less when we tell that story. I don’t even remember what we named it.

Another not quite as ill-fated attempt at pet-motherhood for myself was in college. Like all horror stories, it too began at a Wal-Mart.

When I laid eyes on truly the ugliest fish I had ever seen, it was love at first sight.

You know the ones. The goldfish with the giant googly eyes. They’re incredible and top heavy.

Anyway, my friend surprised me with two of them for my 21st birthday. I named them Cory and Topanga.

They were great for a couple of months. Very low maintenance.

Then one morning I woke up to find Topanga had gotten herself stuck in the faux plant I’d added to their tank for decorative purposes like an idiot. I got her free but she was kind of bent to the side and her one fin had a very Nemo-esque look to it. But she could still swim and stuff.

I left for school and when I got home she was stuck up against the filter. I freed her yet again and she swam just fine, again. At this point, I knew she was suicidal. How could I not have seen the signs? Should I be crushing up zoloft and putting it in the water with her fish food? Should I take her to a pet psychologist? I didn’t have the money for that. I was 21. I needed pumpkin spice lattes and weekly trips to Sephora (FYI: you still need these things when you’re 24).

I tried to monitor her as closely as possible, but the next morning I woke up and she was once again stuck up against the filter, but this time she had succeeded. I buried her in the backyard of my apartment building (actually I made my friend who bought her do it, since I’d crossed the whole touching a dead fish thing off my acceptable hobbies list).

Cory was devastated.

I think he blamed me. For the next several months whenever I was sitting on my couch across the room I’d look over and Cory would be staring right at me from the side of the tank. I’d make contact with those enormous eyeballs and he’d swim away like he hadn’t noticed me.

I think he was plotting revenge.

Then I got a job as a camp counselor and had a friend stop by to feed Cory everyday, but forgot to change the water filter and came home after being gone for a week to find Cory gone. Once again I had my friend come over to bury him, but he was super gross from being dead several days so we just tossed him in the dumpster.

Once, I was even guilt-tripped by my friends into giving a cat a bath and a name after it started showing up on my back porch in college. I tried to tell the cat that I was allergic and also that I was nowhere near the crazy cat lady point in my life yet, but still every morning that jerk would be waiting outside my door for me. Once it was even laying on the hood of my car like it thought it was in a White Snake video.

So I named it Gus and went about my business while also sort of owning a Cat which I couldn’t even touch without sneezing for several hours afterward.

Turns out Gus wasn’t even homeless. He was just a slut who went around trying to pretend to be homeless to get affection and cool names and snacks.

That was the first and last time I ever showed any affection for a cat.

And this is why I am a dog person. All of those pets were the worst.

But those were not dogs. With dogs, I am great. See?

Obvious best friends.

So either they need to create dog-friendly iPhones or I need one of my own to live here in the same city as me.

But only if it promises to uphold the Beyoncé type standards I’ve come to expect from the dogs in my life.

And also if someone else pays for it. And takes it to the vet. And it promises to be well-behaved enough to be able to come to work with me and won’t bite the models. And doesn’t talk to strangers on the subway.

Can you start a kickstarter for getting a dog? That one guy did it just to make potato salad. Getting a dog is way cooler than getting mayonnaise and clogged arteries.

Maybe I should just get a house plant.