5 Pets That Don't Give A Crap That You're A Hot Mess

5 Betta Fish

The website BettaFishCaretaker.com calls this long-finned freshwater tropical fish "a pretty tough camper," which means you could probably take your anger out on it and it would live, so you wouldn't have to feel bad. And it would take a real idiot to kill a betta. Lots of kids take care of them with ease, so as an adult you got this shit on lock. If you can survive filing your taxes, getting in a fender bender, and voluntarily not using your ex's HBO Go account, you can certainly keep this breed of fish alive as well as some snot-nose named Emma who just won one at the street fair near her dad's new apartment.

Bettas are great pets for kids because they require very little to stay alive: You feed them once a day or so, you change the water when it gets brown, you try not to knock over the bowl while pulling a sweatshirt over your head that used to fit (how the fuck does someone get too fat for a sweatshirt?), and try not to drop its little scaly body on the dirty floor of your bathroom while changing its water.

I do speak from experience: I myself am the proud owner of a betta. His name is Feesh, and he's 4 years old and half blind, and a lot of the time I think he's dead. So far, he is not dead. Plenty of sites will have you believe you need to change your betta's water once a week, but as someone who's let it get so bad that her roommate's boyfriend once meekly asked, "Is he OK in there?" I know for a fact you can let that water sit for at least two months. After all, you live in the kind of squalor no expert would advise, so if you can live in a disgustingly dirty house, your fish can put up with it too.

Sometimes I show Feesh a little plastic dinosaur to make him mad (because it's good to make your betta mad so they can stretch their gills). Since I started working from home, I upgraded his tank from a vase I found on the street to a 2.1 gallon tank from Petland Discounts. I also got him a bamboo stalk from the dollar store, and some colored rocks from the dollar store, and a loose marble I found on the shelf of the dollar store, because the dollar store is like Ikea for fish. Then I bought him a little hammock, because bettas, like depressed people, apparently love hammocks. Then I ordered small moss balls on Amazon called marimo that take nitrates out of the water. Then I went to my psychiatrist and he doubled my meds.

While sometimes I feel like the only sad adult with a betta, I know for a fact they're out there. Just today, I saw a woman walking down the street, holding a fishbowl with a betta in it. Instead of wondering what happened ("Did she just break up with a 9-year-old?"), I just thought, "There goes a depressed person."

4 Guinea Pigs

Guinea pigs seem like they're only in the wheelhouse of overly excitable redheads in third grade who somehow try to deny wetting the bed at a sleepover even though, like, it's pretty fucking obvious because their sleeping bag is soaking wet and reeks of piss. But guinea pigs are also excellent companions for people in their late 20s whose grandmothers have given up hope of surviving long enough to see them walk down the aisle.

Not only are guinea pigs, according to LoveThatPet.com, possibly "the gentlest of all pets," they share your aversion to any physical activity, since "they should not use exercise wheels. Ever." Wow, you guys both are harmed by the mere thought of breaking a sweat! Even though exercise would help you work off some rage, decrease your anxiety, release endorphins, and help you work on your negative body image, we both know that's not happening anytime soon, so take a cue from guinea pigs and cancel your gym membership.

Housed in hutches, they do smell like cedar, which will be nice at first -- just like a cabin in the woods! -- but over time, with the addition of gallons of urine and pounds of feces, the cage will start to smell mildewy and musty -- just like a cabin in the woods! Your houseguests may notice the odor, but let's be honest -- when was the last time you had houseguests? What is this, Downton Abbey? Is "houseguests" even a word? You should consider a guinea pig if the closest you've had to houseguests in the past year was one of the following:

-someone else's delivery pad Thai that you accepted anyway, then ignored the doorbell while eating it with your hands
-a Mormon missionary (who actually made some good points)
-a concerned neighbor asking if you are aware of the recent string of pad Thai thefts in the area
-your ex asking why you have so much pad Thai in your fridge
-your ex asking if you stole delivery again
-the police, with lots of questions

While many consider guinea pigs to be lesser than dogs or cats, it's clear that they beat the competition hands-down when it comes to wearing costumes. Here's just the first half of the first page of a Google Image search for "guinea pig costumes":

And if you still really want a dog, you could always fake it:

The one downside of guinea pigs is that they do best in pairs, which will only remind you of your low likelihood of finding a partner your age with a job without settling. Why should a guinea pig get a life mate if you can't get that bartender-slash-SAT-tutor to call you back?

Also, I was holding my little cousins' guinea pig when my other cousin announced she was engaged. Everyone was cheering and looking at her ring and cooing while I was holding a tiny furry jelly bean in the corner, saying, "He's really affectionate."

I stand by my choice 100 percent.

3 Hermit Crabs

Hermit crabs are given to children as pets because of the typical child-pet characteristics: hardy, can defend self, has built-in protection, looks like shit, no one cares if die. They're great for kids with weird allergies and/or moms who are not about to be vacuuming up to 15 years' worth of fur from an animal that she never even wanted. They're also great if you love insects but wish they were slightly more upsetting.

Plus, the FAQ section on Hermit-Crabs.com has some terrifying entries:

According to Hermit-Crabs.com, "Quite often I find about 20 hermies of my clan all piled on top each other, sleeping." More helpfully, the site goes on to tell us one big bummer: "The name 'hermit' is misapplied to our little friends -- they are quite gregarious and like to be around their own kind." Ugh. Just another friend who's all, like, "No, yeah, definitely come with me to this party; I don't know anyone. We can hang out in the corner and talk shit all night," and then you get there and that same goddamn friend spends the whole night talking to everyone, even that guy Chad who just sold his startup, and Chad is the worst. Fuck.

Hermit crabs would talk to Chad.

Still, they're not half-bad pets for sad grown-ups. They will frequently tuck up into their shells, which you are known to do for days at a time. And trying to pull them out will make them pinch, just like when you tell your friends to stop trying to cheer you up and just let you be sad for a few years.

When you need a little change, you can paint on the little guy's shell, just like how you get tattoos whenever you think you've figured out the key to fixing your life.

So, if you hide from other people while secretly longing to clamber on top of them, consider a hermit crab. I had a friend who had them and she'd put stick-on earrings on them, and now she's getting married, so it's worth a try.

2 Goldfish

Owning five to 10 goldfish is an unparalleled joy -- as long as you haven't actually felt joy since last April.

While goldfish produce a lot of waste, require a filter, and get sick easily, owning them does mean you get to buy colorful rocks, which you could probably handle right now. It would really take some of the focus off of your intense dread about what your body will look like in 20 years.

Lots of sites claim that goldfish are good pets for teaching about death. This advice was written for suburban parents whose houses are cleaned on a regular basis, not post-college layabouts who can't figure out how to sign up for Medicaid. You are well-acquainted with the concept of loss: loss of job, loss of passion for what you studied in college, loss of family members, loss of that one person who said they loved you but then took it back because they "meant it too much" but then dumped you. You can handle a dead goldfish. Bring it the fuck on.

Another reason sad adults would be well suited to goldfish is because they both will literally eat until they can't move. On top of that, goldfish have notoriously short attention spans, and you're always forgetting stuff. Not because you aren't capable of remembering but because what's the point? Everything's terrible and nothing matters.

Plus, if you died, it might take people two days to notice.

1 A Mouse

The Humane Society's website calls mice "the picture of cuteness: bright eyes, dainty paws, and a twitching nose all wrapped up in a soft, furry package." And I call them "Why the fuck not; it's not like I have anyone to impress."

While many people think of these little critters as being owned by the shitty neighborhood kid named Seth who likes to talk a huge game about how his snake Chunk eats live mice, they also make excellent pets for people who grew up with Seth and keep Facebooking him to see if he's still alive or not, because if he is there's a chance he got super-hot, and who knows, maybe you should start dating ex-cons, because it's not like you've never broken the law.

Anyway, the American Academy of Pediatrics has my back on this, because they don't recommend this pet for anyone under 5 or anyone who might be pregnant, and I'm about 98 percent sure that I'm neither of those things. As they say, "Young children lack fine motor control and may inadvertently drop a mouse, squeeze him, or scare him into biting." Hey, you've had a rough year -- go ahead and congratulate yourself for having better motor control than a 5-year-old by buying yourself a mouse.

As far as supplies, the Humane Society recommends a budget of about $100 for startup costs for things like bedding, a wheel, toys, and treats. For sad adults, I also recommend the following add-ons to make your mouse-owning experience more enjoyable:

-roommate's wine
-floor nap
-so much crying

You might feel right at home with a couple of Mickeys and Minnies if you have some sort of undiagnosed anxiety disorder. In the lab environment, these little guys spend their lives trying to solve pointless, contrived problems, all the while getting electrocuted, starved, poisoned, and only rarely dosed with cocaine. They're lost, a slave to addictions, easily manipulated, and live their whole lives being poked by people who don't really care about them. Their pale body and unsettling eyes keep any potential sympathizers at bay. They are blank, faceless, interchangeable, and excessively recessive; they exist only to be tested by powers beyond their control, to be eaten by stronger things, a function of and a surrogate for the universe's cruelty.

Also, they bite.

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