I have a theory.

It’s a working theory, based within the Women’s Studies paradigm of “lived experience” rather than the concepts of tested- researched type of… but, fuck it, you don’t care about any of that do you? You just want me to get down to the nitty-gritty of whatever wisdom I was about to impart upon you.

Wisdom is a strong word for my theories- but we’ll work with it.

Onto my theory.

It goes like this: If a dog doesn’t want to bend down their head to eat from their bowl of fresh, organic, raw, meat-from-a-tube- meat that in fact is filled with shredded organs and the smallest bits of bone to keep their bones strong- then the dog isn’t hungry. And to sit down on the floor and coax said dog into eating chunks of cold, red, gritty meat from my fingers is going a little far in the realm of dog ownership.

My partner thinks disagrees. She has some very strong opinions about the lives of our dogs- particularly the life of one small overweight Chihuahua named Martini who is really just content to hang out and go on walks every so often- while peeing on our floor when we go into the other room to brush out teeth. Seriously, our threshold to the bathroom smells distinctly like her vein of Chihuahua gold.

But my theory of how Martini can TOTALLY eat that meat all by herself- "Look, she has a neck and legs and all!" is completely unfounded.

Even when I use science. 

I throw out brilliant gems like: ALL DOGS DO THIS.  All dogs know how to eat. Alone.

Or my personal favorite, ONLY OUR DOG has ALL HER LIMBS AND STILL NEEDS TO BE HAND FED THE GOURMET ENTRÉE OF THE DOG WORLD. 

YES I KNOW SHE’S THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. YES I KNOW WE BOTH WORK JOBS. (Neither of us is even close to full time at this stage in our faltering careers) YES I KNOW WE ONLY HAVE SO MANY YEARS LEFT WITH HER BUT COULDN’T WE JUST… WALK HER AND TAKE LONG DRIVES INSTEAD OF SCOOPING OUT RAW GOOP AND PLAYING “open up now, Mommy’s got a chu-chu?”

Which, "Mommy's got a chu-chu" is incidentally is what I do with most of the rest of my time.

I pretend to be a parent for other people’s children. I am a nanny. I do childcare and I raise other people’s kids in a context relevant for them, their family, their small person needs and in a way I can tolerate.

It’s a pretty good job actually. A lot of backtalk, pooping, crying and the hangries, but after 15 years of it- I’ve come to terms with my own personal management. I hardly ever fire a family anymore. 

I did try, recently, to do a breakaway- because I was gathering the cloak of success around me. Connecting all the dots and grades and fucked up GPAs I couldn’t muster, in order to complete the degree I’d left behind. So, I took myself out of the nanny world. For 6 whole months.

Went out, dragging my enormous portfolio- oh yeah, I’m a visual artist as well as an enthusiastic writer, and I took it to a whole two tattoo shops.

At the first one, I was visibly shaking in anxiety- because all the people who are my friends who have tattooed me, told me that everyone was going to be mean to me… and I hate the idea that out of nowhere people are going to be mean to me because I exists.

But damn.. racism. That happens everyday and those people experiencing racism aren’t even trying to get a job- they’re just waking up and taking the bus, or shopping for groceries- so what did I have to complain about?

Nothing. Except Peanuts. Peanuts- let me just tell you…peanuts are a terrible nut. Both for their mono-cropping history and because I’m damn allergic.

Now, I’m pretty sure the theory of relativity has to do with something regarding our perceptions of reality and how everything relates to one another and how, if we’re grounded in truth then we’ll be able to find our way out of this darkness around all of us. But I’m here to tell you- you never, ever will.

You will die. We are born- then there is a bunch of weird shit that happens. There are moments of intense happiness- you make friends- they die, or they outlive you and then eventually, you die. Sometime before or after your friends. It depends mostly on genetics, how accident prone you are and whether or not you follow a smoothie regiment of the sacred macha powder.

Which I do not. That stuff tastes like clay. Sure, I can lift a car after drinking it- but who needs to lift a car?

My theory of Chihuahua relativity goes like this:

1.     IF the dog is hungry the dog will eat.

2.     IF the dog is not hungry- the dog will not eat, thus saving all of us a little money and taking up some space in the fridge, because WE SERVE OUR DOGS GOURMET RAW MEAT.

3.     My theory has been proven repeatedly when my wife isn’t home.

4.     B still fails to see the obvious wisdom of my proclamations because she insists- if she’s doing the dishes- or sweeping the floor- or in anyway managing to clean our house (since she’s always doing that)- that I feed the dog with my hand.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Our dogs are like our babies- we’re lesbians so we don’t procreate naturally and that means we’re even more attached to our animals than the regular 9-5, animal lover working for the Humane society- or Rachel- the dark haired hottie at Healthy Pets on Alberta who convinced us to move to raw food in the first place.  Thanks Rachel.

So I got no problem with my dogs, Dirt and Martini, eating better meat than I do.

(I do actually have a problem with humans who force their cats to be vegan because they are though- it creates malnutrition and that seems terrible for people who say they care about animals.)

But BASELINE is this: I don’t want to feed Martini raw meat with my hands. She’s chubby anyways (Like her Momma) and I think- if she doesn’t want to eat it herself- I shouldn't have to hand it to her in mouse sized chunks on my fingertips. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN THE WILD.

B just looks at me and says: “Her neck hurts. Sit down on the floor and feed her breakfast.”

And I do. But not without a little backtalk of my own.

“Fascist.”

“What did you call me?”

“My favorite person in the world?” I muse out loud- dripping ground duck parts on my index and middle finger so I can’t flip B any version of the bird without globbing myself in the eye.

“Fattist?”

“FASCIST. F-A-S-C… “ I pause here for a moment.  Spelling has never been my strong suit and while I’m sure there’s both an S and a C, two S’s seems excessive.

“Fascist. One who works to dominate or control another person. It’s worthless resisting a fascist because they just overpower you, usually with words and money- they call this political clout.”

“I know what political clout it. I’m an anarchist. A peace-loving- capitalism hating- anarchist. I’m not a fascist.”

“You are right now. You’re oppressing me.”

“Just feed the dog. Her neck hurts”.

And I do. The whole argument lasts more than the three minutes it takes to scoop the gloop out of the gunk and press it to the rotting teeth of my 13 year old, absolutely healthy and pretty damn spunky Chihuahua. As soon as the food’s gone, Martini begins to growl at me and I back away, quietly.

Gotta give a girl her space you know.

Fascists.

P.S. "Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe." According of course, to the ultimate citation source of the 20th century. Wikipedia.