I Am Not a Wolf

By Dan Sheehan and Sage Coffey

One of the Best Humor Books of 2021! (Vulture)

You are a HUMAN MAN navigating every day life, dating, bus etiquette, and other important human concerns. You are definitely NOT A WOLF. 

Life is good. You have a job, an apartment in a nice part of town, and an online dating profile that’s recently yielded as many as three matches. From the outside, it would appear you’re a human man that has all the pieces of a stable and functional life. But you also have a horrible secret. You’re not a human man at all. You're a WOLF. 

Based on the immensely popular Twitter account @SickOfWolves, this interactive story follows you, (who, if anyone asks, is NOT A WOLF) as you go about normal life, making choices that will either reveal your true identity or allow you to keep your cover. Each choice is crucial to your survival and, more importantly, your burgeoning graphic design career. Will you navigate water cooler gossip without arousing suspicion? Can you go on a date without bringing up how much you love ham? Or is it perhaps time to throw this human world to the wind and return to the woods from whence you came?  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781524871697

Book preview

To Mom and Dad, my sister Becca,

and my girlfriend Julia, for their

encouragement, support, and

unending tolerance for my use

of the phrase Wolf Twitter.

Chapter 1

You’re scared. You knew today was coming, but you thought it would be easier to do what needs to be done. You thought you’d find yourself overwhelmed with adrenaline and ready to complete the task at hand. You know nothing happens without hard work. Your mother used to say that the only guarantee any living thing has is that each moment of its life will be spent in a desperate fight to justify its existence. If she saw you now, she’d tell you that you’re a coward. She’d tell you that if you were going to do this, you’d have already done it. She’d wonder why you were even bothering. But your mother isn’t here, and today, you’re going to do it. Today, you’re going to take a shower.

You are a wolf. But this is something the world can’t know. Some people aren’t ready to know, some aren’t willing to understand, but most are just terrified of wolves for some reason. You’ve spent much of your life integrating into human society. You have a job, an apartment, several online dating profiles, and a terrible roommate. But human beings are expected to maintain a certain level of cleanliness that you’ve let fall by the wayside. You refuse to risk sacrificing all that hard work just be fear running water. It’s time to make this right. You ease your paws over the shower knob and gently move it to the left. The shower sputters to life, spraying harmless water into the tub. You watch the water run into the drain and glance back at the showerhead. Harmless. You leap into the tub, and the water strikes you. At first, you bristle at the sudden warmth, but you take a deep breath and allow yourself to relax. It’s just water. You’re safe, and soon, you’ll be clean too. You don’t find yourself showering often, and you’re certain that your roommate won’t miss a little bit of his shampoo, so you wrap your jaws around his bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. All you need to do is get a little bit of it on the floor of the tub so that you can evenly distribute it across your fur and bestow upon yourself the smell of fresh rain, or at least its chemical approximation. You squeeze your jaw shut to squeeze the shampoo when suddenly, the water gets hot. It shoots from a comfortable lukewarm temperature to something more along the lines of hot knives, and you suddenly feel extremely uncomfortable. Caleb must have run the dishwasher in the kitchen. Your jaw clamps down instinctively on the shampoo bottle with incredible pressure, causing your mouth to fill with a goop that tastes nothing like rain as the shampoo explodes into your eyes. You howl in rage and sprint out of the tub, blind. You run into what must be the shower curtain and tumble out of the bathroom and into the living room. Still completely wrapped in the shower curtain, you run toward what smells like your room and violently shut the door behind you. You escape the shower curtain and shake yourself dry, taking a moment to note that while you’ve definitely ruined the bathroom in a big way, you do smell dirt now. You really hope your roommate didn’t see that. Speaking of which, it’s time for breakfast, and, based on the nightmarish smell you’ve just caught on the air, Caleb is making his ridiculous vegan sausage patties again, so you’ll be fending for yourself. As if that’s a new concept.

You pop up on two legs and begin the complicated process of getting ready for work. Once you’ve fully dressed yourself, you fiddle with the door until it swings open. You stumble into your living room, briefly dropping down onto all fours and forcing yourself back up again. Your eyes dart around the room to see if you’ve saved face. It would appear that you have. Caleb is too busy frying up impostor sausage and playing some sort of game on his phone. Caleb is a frail-looking young man. He is tall, which often signifies strength in humans, but his form is thin and, to you, seems malnourished. You assume this is likely the result of countless years of indoorsmanship. He’s a young man but seems to not have any sort of job. He often talks about a screenplay that he is working on or workshopping or "getting some notes on from his friend who works on Rick and Morty," but his day-to-day efforts seem mostly dedicated to binge-watching Netflix shows. You are unsure where his money comes from, but he occasionally mentions a temp agency. Caleb’s lifestyle and various nontraditional food smells are often annoying, but Caleb has a quality that you value above all others: he has never asked you a single question about your personal life. You walk over to the fridge and wrap your jaws around a rotisserie chicken sitting on the top shelf.

You’ve managed to integrate into this world because human society is too self-absorbed to pay you much mind. Without any natural predators, the human race has become content to keep most interactions quick and easy. In fact, you’ve found that the more someone stands out, the more people tend to leave them alone. You recently saw a man dancing shirtless in the street in broad daylight. Not a single person even looked at him, let alone said his behavior was incongruous with that of a normal human. It seems that everyone is terrified that the person who seems dance in the street interesting might also be secret murderer interesting. For a moment, you think that this is sad before you remember that it also helps you ride the bus.

You gnaw on your morning bird, and its bones crack loudly. Caleb’s face grimaces, but he doesn’t avert his gaze from his phone. He doesn’t seem to care what type of interesting you are as long as you pay your rent. You worry sometimes that your relationship with Caleb could be better. You do not have many human friends, and it would be nice to spend mornings and evenings in something other than odd silence. You think today may be the perfect day to forge your first true human friendship. You are under the impression that true roommates communicate mostly through low-stakes arguments. You clear your throat and prepare to address one of Caleb’s many transgressions.

HELLO CALEB, GOOD MORNING I WAS WONDERING WHAT YOUR REASON WAS FOR LEAVING THAT BOWL OF RIGATONI ALFREDO IN THE SINK ALL WEEK BECAUSE THE CHEESE HAS BEGUN TO SCAB IN A WAY THAT I HAVE PREVIOUSLY ONLY OBSERVED IN WOUNDS.

Caleb briefly looks up from his phone. You put on your best smile, which, if you’re being honest with yourself, is mostly just you leaving your mouth open and panting a little bit.

Oh yeah. Sorry. I forgot about it. I’ll totally get it this afternoon; I just have a thing to get to this morning.

Nailed it. Today is going to be amazing. Caleb walks away in a manner that you assume is more friendly than before. Caleb is a big-time introvert, he talks about it almost all the time, so you know that your friendship may be slower to develop. And he does always have a thing to get to. But today was a big step for the two of you. Perhaps after work, you can address the fact that Caleb has not purchased any toilet paper for multiple weeks. Interpersonal relationships are a whirlwind! You grab your backpack and head out the door, determined to conquer the day. Human life is about being as stressed out as you can possibly get without throwing up, and today you intend to get extremely close to throwing up.

You walk outside into the cool morning. You can already tell from the breeze and the scent of grass clippings in the air that it’s going to be a beautiful spring day. You’ve survived another winter, and it’s time to be your best self. You ate your breakfast quickly and decisively, leaving you with ample time to get to the office. You could go to work the usual way, by taking the bus, but you consider the idea of saving yourself some headache by using a rideshare app to save time.

If you wish to take the bus, go to Chapter 2.

If you would like to use a rideshare app, go to Chapter 5.

Chapter 2

You make your way toward your local bus stop. It’s not the fastest way of getting around, but it’s certainly the safest. The bus is a horrid place, so full of strangers and various smells that the people riding it make a special effort to pay as little attention to those around them as they possibly can. The bus is a place where everyone stares at the ground and minds their own business, and when riding it, you’ve never felt safer. Your bus stop is fairly empty this morning, with one solitary man waiting on the bench. You walk past him to stand closer to the curb, leaving a healthy distance between the two of you. Bus Stop Code dictates that you both should pretend that the other person is not there for as long as you possibly can.

Some lovely weather we’ve been getting, right?

Sweet Mother Nature, this stranger has broken Bus Stop Code. This man has revealed himself as a loose cannon, as unpredictable as he is dangerous. Now, you must act like talking to a complete stranger isn’t completely insane, or you risk further questions.

WOW YES YOU ARE CORRECT I ENJOY HOW NIGHT IS SHORTER DURING THIS TIME OF YEAR BECAUSE THERE IS LESS DARKNESS TO FEAR.

The man turns to face you, giving you a good look up and down. Yeah, wow, I guess that’s true. Never really thought about it that way. Oh no, this is awful; you’ve accidentally said something he finds thought-provoking. He’ll certainly have more to say now. He pauses for a moment, In the winter, it’s dark, like, a lot. That was an extremely obvious point he just made, so luckily, it doesn’t really merit a response. If you play it cool here, you can come off as both intellectually superior and unwilling to continue speaking. You nod your head slightly to show that you heard that dumb thing he said. If you’re lucky, the conversation will end here. You are not lucky.

It makes me think of when . . .

Before this interpersonal train wreck can get any worse, the bus pulls up. When the door slides open, you sling your backpack over your shoulder and quickly make your way onto the bus. You take part in the bus ritual of apologizing to literally everyone you pass and do your best to blend in near the back. You have to put as much distance between yourself and the stranger as you possibly can. You cautiously look around and see no sign of him in the dense crowd of commuters. The bus starts moving, and you let yourself relax just a little bit, when suddenly you hear, There he is! The stranger smiles at you. Thought I lost you, bus buddy! So, where’re you headed?

Bus buddy. You now know for a fact that you are on a runaway train straight to hell. The stranger is now right in your personal space, kissing-distance away from your face due to the fullness of the bus, and you have nowhere to go. At this distance, he is sure to notice your many serrated teeth or, at the very least, your thick coat of facial fur. You are doing your best to remain calm, but you need to make a decision quickly. If you attempt to continue talking to him, you run the risk of him realizing that you’re not the man you claim to be. You could attempt to get off at the next stop, but then you risk the greatest humiliation of all: being slightly late for work.

If you think it’s best to indulge the friendly stranger and get to work, go to Chapter 3.

If you want to be cautious and get off at the next stop, making yourself late, go to Chapter 4.

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