You’ve Woken Up the Day After a Party to Find You’ve Stolen the Host’s Dog. What Now?

Life is full of regrets isn’t it? Like last night when you decided to mix tequila, everclear, absinthe and a bagel bite in one drink. As soon as your feet hit the floor, a sudden wave of dizziness knocks you to the ground, face down. You lay there for what feels like an eternity, debating if death is really all that scary or worse than the brain fire you now feel destroying everything you learned in this week’s lectures. Before you can decide to be or not to be, you feel a cold, wet tongue drag its way across the back of your neck and up your scalp. That’s weird. Your roommate doesn’t get home until Tuesday. After determining you aren’t hallucinating, you roll onto your back to see Minni, your friend’s beloved German Shepherd-Lab mix, whom you met at the party last night.

The sudden shock of seeing this obviously out of place canine in your home is enough to briefly rouse you from your painful hangover and cause you to retrace your steps from last night. You got to your friend’s party around 10:45. Your crush was already three drinks in. By 11:30, you were at that stage where you needed to sit on the couch, stare into space and convince yourself breathing is supposed to be involuntary. It was at this point when you and Minni became firm friends. The good good girl came by to make sure you were okay and demanded 10 minutes of ear scratchies and belly rubs until you felt okay to stand up again.

Snap back to reality: oh, the dog’s gotta pee. You notice her leash draped over the back of the couch and clip it to her collar. As you walk her to the closest green area, you realize you've committed grand theft doggo. What will your friend think? This is going to be like the time in third grade when you went to Shelly Jaeger’s house and took her prized Domo figurine and she wouldn’t talk to you until high school graduation. God, you're such a shitty person. The next thing you remember from last night happened around 2 am. You told your friend how good Minni was and how you wish you your own dog. That’s it. The smoking gun. Your dumb drunk self stole a dog out of jealousy. You are a shitty friend.

Your self-reflection is once again interrupted. This time, it’s your phone receiving a text. It’s your friend. Yeah, that friend. This is going to be Shelly Jaeger all over again. Tears begin to well in your eyes as you prepare for the worst. As you begin to read the content of the message, your heart drops. “Hope you're not too hungover! Last night got pretty wild. Thanks again for agreeing to watch Minni while I’m at the beach this weekend. I know it was kind of last minute.Try not to get too attached to her, I don’t want you stealing her, lol!”