Kept

I have a hard time being a hardass with my dogs. I don’t even know what to call myself in relation to them. I sure as hell don’t want to call myself their master. I don’t even want to call myself their owner. It’s all so human centric.

I try to put myself in my dogs' shoes. My dogs don’t literally wear shoes but you know what I mean. Would I like it if the guy who walks me around called himself my master? I’d be insulted. I’d want to bite him.

I even feel guilty keeping them on a leash when they're outside. I feel like I’m treating them like hostages.

I know it’s stupid. I know they’re just dogs but I can’t help it. It’s a hang up I have. It’s a cripple thing. If there’s one thing I never ever ever want to be it’s kept. I know how it feels to be kept. And so if I treat any other creature that way, even a dog, I feel like a flaming hypocrite.

A kept cripple is very much like a kept woman, except kept women get better benefits. In exchange for surrendering her autonomy and identity for a rich benefactor, a kept woman will usually get put up in a mansion with servants at her beck and call and shit like that. At least that makes the deal somewhat attractive

But not so for kept cripples. Kept cripples are the ones who are stuck in those putrid nursing homes. In exchange for surrendering their autonomy and identity, what do they get from the rich benefactor who owns the nursing home? Well, they get one shower a week and green bologna for lunch.

But then again, more is required of a kept woman than of a kept cripple. A kept woman is expected to cater to the needs of her benefactor. Kept cripples just have to shut the fuck up and play bingo.

I was once a kept cripple. When I was a teenager, I was an inmate at a state boarding school for cripples, which I refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). Of all the kept cripples at SHIT, the keptest were the kids they called wards of the state. They never had any family come around or anything.

But anyway, when it comes to my dogs, I suppose I could get used to calling myself their human. John, one of the members of my pit crew, says maybe I should call myself their facilitator. Sounds like a good idea.



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