Tonight during my experimental fiction class, I heard the familiar sound of paws scratching at my office door. Apollo sometimes likes to spend my writing classes with me. I opened the door, happy that my dog wanted to spend time with his mama.

Immediately after opening the door, Apollo lunged towards his water bowl. I see how it is. He didn’t want to spend time with me. He just wanted water. I put my earbuds back in, keeping myself on mute while my dog loudly lapped up his water.

I was trying to focus on the upcoming workshop reading, but Apollo decided that my attention was better spent on him. He immediately ran towards a basket of stuffed animals that I keep in the corner of my room and tried to wrench one from it. The workshop author had just started to read a lovely poem in a serene reading voice, and I wanted to pay attention.

Then Apollo noticed I had left my plate on a sewing table. Let’s make this next part an immersive experience.

Imagine you are one of the workshop participants. As you listen to this beautiful reading, you see a woman in the Zoom window frantically motioning to her tiny dog, who is standing on the tippiest of his puppy paws to reach the dinner plate on the sewing table. You witness the dog will himself to be an anteater as his tongue desperately tries to reach the remnants of the pulled pork taco left on the plate. Watch his human mom slowly die inside as she stands up, picks him up, and brings him back to her chair, defeated.

Once Apollo was safely on my lap, he couldn’t keep still. He then decided that my armrest was some kind of gourmet dessert, and started licking it non-stop. TRY PAYING ATTENTION TO ANYTHING WHILE THIS IS HAPPENING.

Once I had a break in the class, I took the pup downstairs to stay with his dad. Sorry, Apollo. We are not writing workshop buddies.