One of my friends is a big fan of unicorns: the fun, the sparkles, the glitter, the rainbows. She wishes she had her own Unicorn to ride to work. Stuck in traffic? How about stuck in traffic on a unicorn. Start seeing motorcycles? How about start seeing unicorns. Got a case of the Mondays? How about a case of the unicorns.

But I still try to convince her that it is better that unicorns stay mythological and don’t exist in real life. Unicorns have a perfect image the way it is. If we had unicorns in real life, it would just tarnish that image and make us worse off.

Unicorns would make terrible pets. A lot of people have pet cats and think they’re cute, but complain about the small scratches. If you think scratches are bad, try being gored by a unicorn. It’s fun to feed horses apples and carrots by hand. But with unicorns, you can’t feed them by hand without a high risk of losing an eye or getting impaled. You’d need to get an eight-foot long unicorn feeding stick. We would become a nation of people with eyepatches. The lack of depth perception would hurt professionalism in the workplace when no one is able to land a handshake.

If unicorns existed, people would breed donkeys and unicorns to get unicorn mules or mule-icorns. Mule-icorns would besmirch the magical image of unicorns. They don’t exactly look like something that would come prancing down a rainbow and if you ever did get one on a rainbow, they would probably not go anywhere and be really stubborn.

Little girls can be exhausting when they say, “I want a pony, I want a pony.” But if they start saying, “I want a unicorn, daddy,” we would sympathize with them. How can you deny someone a unicorn? What is this, Oliver Twist?

I don’t know why people think unicorns would be so approachable. I plead with my friend that horns change everything. Cows are approachable, but put some horns on that cow and you get a bull and it is no longer approachable. Rhinos might eat plants, but they are not friendly. Pigs might be cute and fun to carry, but boars, I don’t think so. Deer without antlers can be at a petting zoo, but good luck trying to convince someone to pet a twelve point buck.

People have learned not to mess with horned animals. But common sense doesn’t stand a chance once people get a look of that unicorn.