“What’s next, chief, eating trash? Harassing rabbits?”

Muriel and I have been coworkers since our first week together. (Her name isn’t really Muriel, that’s an alias selected because she’s frequently told “You’re terrible.”) For our first year together, we worked from an office where she made new friends every day. Since then, we’ve worked from home.

Every morning, including weekends, she follows me into the office and looks at me expectantly. Her preference is obviously for an exotic wilderness assignment, maybe a bit of bird-chasing or ritual squirrel murder. Then she watches me sit at the desk and open my computer, and perhaps notices the nearby stack of ’80s celebrity tell-alls and Kristy McNichol DVDs.

That’s when her hope is extinguished, as she wonders why all the other dogs with lesbian moms get to go fun places in Subarus, while I read to her from Estelle Getty’s memoir. And she looks at me with those mournful eyes that often wander in opposite directions, and her expression distinctly communicates “I’m not mad, but I’m disappointed.”