Jokes, Riddles, and Other Philosophical Insights

The Mistake

I made the mistake of buying a unicorn last Tuesday. The pet store had them on sale, and I was in the shopping district anyway, so I figured why not.

I brought her home to my small apartment in the Upper West side of Manhattan, but I soon realized that her horn scraped the door frame every time she passed through. I tried cutting notches in the middle of the frame, but she walked to the side just to spite me.

My carpet was too skimpy, she complained, my T.V. too slow. She claimed that the bathtub was too wide for her to feel comfortable in and that the shower was too cold. At night, she would lay on the ottoman at the foot of my bed, then sleepwalk over to plop herself down on top of the bedspread. I've woken up twice now to her long, coarse mane ticking the insides of my nose and mouth.

We were sitting in the living room this morning, six feet apart, trying not to glare at the mistake we had made. She pawed at the carpet, lowered her head, and snorted. I tuned her out with the T.V. and tried to ignore how her muzzle trembled when she breathed. She snorted again, this time louder.

I muted the channel as a commercial for a new showerhead came on. "What?"

"The T.V. is too loud," she said.

"Do you have nothing better to do than to sit on my subpar carpet and complain?" I asked. She snorted and resumed her idle pawing.

It struck me that she had been the only unicorn in the store.

I looked down and saw my hand raised over the couch cushion next to me. I looked back at the unicorn. "Fine, come over here," I said, patting the seat.

The unicorn jumped up quickly, adding a new horn scrape to my ceiling, and circled over to the couch where she settled in beside me. Her long, white mane fell in my face, but for once I didn't mind. The warm comfort of a companion was enough.

"My name is Jason, by the way," the unicorn said. "You never asked me once."