Forthcoming in The Harvard Advocate
Runner Up: 2021 WLP Graduate Student Awards, Emerson College

An acquaintance of mine got a baby and decided he needed to get rid of his dog. He said the dog was too rowdy, and he was worried it would hurt the baby. Fine, I said, I’ll take the dog. I’d recently bought my first house and had the space for it.
      The dog was great at first. It was playful and rolled around, seemed affectionate. I liked the dog, and gave it a good name. But then the dog showed me his handgun. The guy hadn’t told me about the gun. I tried to make him take the dog back.
      “No way am I taking that dog back.”
      “You didn’t tell me the dog had a gun.”
      “You didn’t ask. I didn’t tell you the dog didn’t have a gun either. You should have asked that.”
      I tried to appeal to his wife but she didn’t care. She had a baby to look after now and what did she care if some idiot she barely knew had a dog with a gun? Everything was someone else’s problem.
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Read the rest in an upcoming issue of The Harvard Advocate — 1,586 words

This story was rejected 35 times before acceptance.