CENTRAL REVIEW • SPRING 2020 • 33
How to Get A Dog by Isabella Gross
Imitation of Jennifer Howard’s “How to End Up” You’re sitting on the floor of your apartment leaning on the coffee table. Your roommate took the couch when she moved to Los Angeles last week. You asked her, what, are you gonna buy it a row on the plane? She said it was her parents’ old couch and they were going to give it to her younger brother when he starts college. You tell her you’re glad that they’re so concerned about giving him a comfy place to get laid, and she didn’t text you back. And so you’re sitting on the floor of your apartment, scrolling through Instagram. You’ve fallen into a hole of dog videos, and you’ve found yourself double tapping on each wiggly corgi butt and singing husky. You look around your quiet kitchen and down the dark hallway, and a bright thought jumps into your head. You should really get a dog. You imagine strolling down the aisles of PetSmart, filling a cart with a wonky front wheel that keeps swerving to the left with low-cal training treats and chew toys. You pick up a tiny puppy puffer jacket and wonder, will she need this? Yeah, yes, of course she will, and you’re imagining your Instagram full of stills of her running though the January snow and you toss in into the cart. And then you imagine your ex-boyfriend’s best friend who’s still following you for whatever reason commenting that you don’t need to put a coat on your dog, they used to be wolves for fuck’s sake and you take it back out. Then the employee at the end of the aisle in the ill-fitting blue vest smiles at you kindly and you throw it back in. You imagine bringing her home in a tattered blanket and showing her to her baby pink bed for the first time. You think it would be so cute if she woke you up in the morning with happy kisses. You dream about the Hal-
