[ WP ] When everyone turns 18 , they receive a pet which is figurative of their personality . You 're the first person to receive a dragon ...

Sue Wilkins got a cat; she lorded that over us for weeks, as if a cat was the best sort of animal there was, and not the acme of egomania. 
 
 Mark Johnson got a basset hound. He spent the whole week moping; then again, that's what he always does. His parents were cruel, meaning to be kind. 
 
 When my time came, the first thing I noticed was the size of the box on the lawn. I could n't just help thinking of stories of parents gone mad, acquiring rhinos when bulldogs would have sufficed, or that girl two towns over who was trampled by her giraffe. They put the beast down, but she never got another. She had n't been an animal person in the first place, unlike her parents. 
 
 Me, I'm not at all like my parents. They're... common. 
 
 I am not. 
 
 My box was huge, red crepe and golden rope, with mother and father standing somberly next to it. Next to them, aunt Thelema, uncle Szandor, the neighbors, my acquaintances, the school class, everybody. 
 
 `` Son'', father said, with his usual uneducated directness, as I laid a hand pregnant with expectation on the box. `` As you know, it is traditional -- -'' 
 
 `` I know'', I snapped. The box was so big, how was I going to feed something this huge? What monumental miscarriage of their mismeasure of my ability lay behind this tacky carmine curtain? `` Dad, what is this?'' 
 
 `` -- -so, after careful consideration between ourselves and the Mother Extremal'' -- - that draconian martinet of a fraud in white gave me a smile, from her place among the schoolchildren -- - `` we have settled on a representation of your present personality the best we can.'' 
 
 I pull the rope, the package opens, dad shouts: `` A dragon!'' 
 
 Peoole gasp, I most of all. A dragon? How fitting! How meet! How like me to be the first -- - 
 
 `` Dad? There's nothing in here.'' 
 
 `` Of course not, you insufferably arrogant phony, dragons are n't real. Now go get a fucking job before we kick your sponger ass to the curb.''
