“What’s your problem, DJ?" I cried. "Never saw someone pee before?”

DJ threw me the ole canine classic what-I-do-now look, turned his head to the side and whined.

“Get a life, Dog Breath! I’m not that interesting!”

The pooch hung his head in shame and tucked his stubby tail between his scrawny legs.

“Go hunt rodents, dig up petunias, but for the love of Lassie, let me pee in peace!”

Whereupon the insulted canine whimpered and slinked away in disgrace.

“Is that the kind of appreciation you show a creature who thinks you’re God on Earth?” whispered the Little Man Inside my Head. “Surely no one else does.”

Which triggered the epiphany I’ve been waiting for all my life:

“Always close the bathroom door."

Enveloped in enlightenment, I understood why I have a dog. As pathetic as it may sound and it is - I need to be the center of a universe, any universe, preferably one that revolves around Me and doesn't include my Aunt Harriet from Pickering.

We all do.

And while you may get that to a lesser extant from your orbit of friends and family, you'll still always be just You to them: the guy with the piece of parsley stuck to his front teeth, the gal who ate the tub of Chunky Monkey on Valentine's Day, the kid who barfed in the pool. You.

With a dog however, you're worshiped, you're infallible, you're unconditionally loved, you are the center of the universe. And during these best of times, these worst of times, in this Orwellian Age of Google where we have been stripped of our humanity, abased into data subsets, we need affirmation that we actually count, that our lives have meaning, that we exist.

So we have a dog.