My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie "I have a Corgi friend!" "What?" "I have a Corgi friend!" "...What?" " I HAVE A CORGI FRIEND, GOD DAMN IT. WHAT ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING?!" "Hold on, stop. Slow down. Breathe. What Corgi friend?" "Okay. Have you ever been to the pet store?" "Yeah?" "The one where we got Zelda?" " Yeah? " "And they have all those other cats, and dogs come in to get washed and groomed, and they have adoption fairs every Saturday for - " " I have established that I've been there, John. Get to the point." "Well, I went there to get more wet food for Zelda, and there was this Corgi. Named Wesley." "Oh, yeah, I've seen him before. He's one of the neighbor's dogs." "He's so cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!" "He's a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, right? The kind with the longer tails. Very handsome." ...

I tried to get into the university I wanted, but I was denied without so much as a second glance. I knew it was a long shot - the graduate program that the school offered appeared only to have room for the best of the best, the crème de la crème - and I happened to be the equivalent of skim milk when they were looking for custard. I was ready to give up on a master's degree entirely.