Do it for him

You once threw a big party every year in the middle of July which, due to circumstances, began at 10:30p, ended at 4a, and involved several hundred bottles of imperial stout. It would always be thrown in the middle of a music festival that you like, and eventually it got to be the sort of thing that bands who played the festival would attend, and after 10 years of that form of absurdity you got tired and ended the party the only way you know how: with ten-year verticals of Bourbon County Stout & Dark Lord. You are a normal person and this is how you live.

Then you buy a house and, three months later, put a dog in it. You have wanted a dog for, like, a decade, and as a renter that was hard, but now you don’t rent, so. You name him Basil because “he looks like a Basil,” you tell everyone.

It turns out that Basil is, objectively speaking, a sacred being, essentially the perfect dog, needing hardly any training, doing the funniest & cutest things imaginable all of the time, getting out of your way when you need him to be out of your way, and showing a form of unconditional love that you never knew was possible in your life. Yes, you know that, as the owner, you are likely to be very stupid for this dog. But another thing happens: all of your friends become stupid for the dog, too. “Worship” is an appropriate word for what ensues, broadly speaking. You start a group iMessage that is literally just Basil pics, and it hits the limit in one day. One person breaks down crying while petting Basil, saying “he’s healing me,” and you believe her.

Basil is a very good boy.