Life can get lonely without a pet. Granted, most animals are totally incapable of understanding all your human problems and relationship issues since they rarely have more complex thoughts than "Ooh I'm gonna eat this bug, hooray!" But they still make you feel like you have constant company, and sometimes that feeling is all you need.
There are so many to choose from, though! If a thing is alive, and not illegal, and even sometimes if it is illegal, somebody has it as a pet. Here are some of the more popular choices, including the ones whose popularity is a total mystery to us. For your convenience, each is accompanied by a bad portmanteau that summarizes its ownership experience.
Cats
Graceful and meme-worthy, cats make the perfect scapegoat if you've just done something horribly stupid on the Internet, as they are magnetically drawn to keyboards, apparently. Though fun and playful, cats are bad listeners, and not very supportive of all your social drama. They are best suited to owners who don't mind if a pet's only show of support is basically "Hey bro, here's this bird I killed for you. Okay I'm out, see you when I want food."
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Snooty + Aloof = Snaloofy
Possible Cute Name: Meowzers
Dogs
A dog is the only best friend you can buy at the store, we hope. Their friendliness is right there in their scientific name, because they are scientifically proven to love you no matter what. You can slap a ridiculous outfit on them or demand that they do a bunch of goofy antics before you feed them some bone-shaped animal bits; they don't care. Not many of them can tell you they love you, but when they do, it is adorable. The only downside is that dog ownership involves a lot of dog-droppings, and you will be the one cleaning them up.
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Effusive Friendship + Poo = Epoosive
Possible Cute Name: Mr. Woofy
Fish
Colorful and largely useless, fish are incapable of reciprocating your emotions, or indeed of even just refraining from eating each other. They can be worthwhile pets, however, if you want something extremely low maintenance, like a beautiful painting that dies unless you feed it sometimes.
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Fishy + Edible In Case You Decide You Hate Them = Fishlicious
Possible Cute Name: Bubbles
Birds
Birds are ideal if you have an interest in squawking sounds or falconry. Some of them are quite intelligent, enough so to say that they love you in human words without ever devolving into a misspelled racist diatribe, making them verifiably smarter than many YouTube commenters.
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Feathery + Friendly = Featheriendly
Possible Cute Name: Admiral Squawkington
Tarantulas
These enormous, nightmarish spiders are, uh... A creative pet choice, renowned for their... many terrible eyes...
Okay, sorry, we can't get behind this one. If you wake up and your pet is in your bed, you should feel glee, not abject horror. A spider is not a pet.
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Monstrous + Gothy = Gothstrous
Possible Cute Name: N/A. Really, what do you want here? Hairy McBlooddrinker? Come on.
Guinea Pigs
If you would benefit from owning a creature that is simultaneously terrified of you and dependent on you to remain alive, then consider guinea pig ownership! These chirpy little weirdos will run scurrying for cover when faced with any stimuli whatsoever, including you reaching to pet them and you reaching to do anything at all, ever.
Caretaking Experience Summarized In One Word: Frantic + Jittery = Frittery
Possible Cute Name: Whiskers von Chirpsalot
Llamas
If nothing else here strikes your fancy, call this dude and ask him to deliver a llama. What possible use you have for a llama is not our business.
What's your ideal pet?
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