Something seriously terrible and embarrassing has happened—an invasion, really. Despite years of bitching, I’ve joined the goddamned Cult of Poo. 

Already, I can feel my friends easing back and forbidding its discussion. No one’s blaming them, either. There’s no apologizing or even understanding this sorority of stink, this fetid fraternity. Believe me, the last thing in the world I want to be going on about is poo, not when we should really be discussing practical tactics for boycotting the Olympics in China. (Not just because of Tibetan repression, but because Olympics are cheap ramps for jingoistic nationalism in the first place. All that Us vs. Them shit. That’s the number-two problem in the world today, after overpopulation.)

But back to the annoying Cult of Poo. It all started with a Shih Tzu named Lucky. An old friend asked if I could do him a solid, and without thinking or even hearing the details I barked, “Anything.” 

“Well, okay,” he said. “I’ll just drop the dog off for a week, then.” 

Shit. 

See, thing is—on and off principle—I hate dogs. Their neediness creeps me out. And they stink. I haven’t just had bad experiences with them, I’ve had nightmares. Their shortcomings, defined in blood.

Let’s start with “invasive.” I got headbutted at an art show last year, all because some yob across the street thought a bunch of strangers needed their personal space violated by his giant, cock-breathed Rottweiler. When exception was taken, the yob and his dog went nuts.

Or how about “helpless.” A couple years back, our house successfully dogsat a Chihuahua for about 20 minutes until one of my buddies opened the front door. Fucking thing ran out, and directly into the wheel well of a curbed sedan. I watched the tiny dog die a minute later. Little black eyes all closing forever. Torture to behold.

Oh, I’ve loved a few canines: Thurman, Sniper, Rickett. But that stopped none of them from eating their own fossilized dumps then galloping up for a kiss. Like the “childhood-bullied, thus now neo-conservative” ilk, dogs are kind of a troubled species.

Predictably, things went south after only a couple days of Shih Tzu-watching. I’ll spare you the details, except the part where the fuzzball’s entire backside was a creamy mess of personally-paralyzing poo. Idiot dog versus man. Us versus them, indeed. And I honestly panicked. Why me? “What the fuck do you do with this?” I asked Lucky at my feet—as if he could ever answer. 

He just stood there, shivering in the wind. And that’s when something broke. There was only one thing to do. Fix it. One person to do it. Me. I headed in for a sponge.

And for the first time, I finally “got” why everyone goes on about their helpless, horrible, howling human babies. Because if you didn’t take some sort of burning pride in your foul responsibility, cleaning up after the messes these dumb things make, you’d probably just go insane, like cops tend to. It was some of the purest empathy I’ve ever felt. 

As Lucky looked up at me from the tub with absolutely nothing behind those huge eyes, I suddenly exploded with joy that I’d kept him going. Jesus Christ, I’d joined the Cult of Poo.

And that’s the story of how I decided to have six children, wear pleated pants, never go to another rock show, and respond to every newspaper headline with the sentence, “Well, what can you do?” Okay, fuck that. 

But I did keep the dog.