DOIN' A STRETCH IN DOG PRISON

Feb 27
9 min read

Updated: Feb 28

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Juno, destined to wear the jewelled crown of Goole upon a troubled brow.

It is I, her chronicler, who alone can tell thee of her saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

So, in the before times, when we had tiled floor in the living room and prior to the magic of the RoboVac coming to splinter my domestic shackles into a thousand pieces, this guy used to vacuum and mop the floor every Thursday evening. My girl Juno is a nervous wreck so I used to incarcerate her in dog prison while I grafted, built from the sofa cushions. I chronicled my domestic suffering on social media in a series of increasingly bitter posts. Although it starts light-hearted and whimsical, by the end of this odyseey my defeat is undeniable and my destruction laid bare. It is a raw nerve to expose but if I aren't careful all these moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain.

Everytime I strip the couch to do the cleaning me and Juno play pillow fort. It’s our favourite time of the week as you can tell from her face.

Pillow fort night again. Don’t let her expression fool you, she’s into it.

It’s Juno favourite time of the week: Pillow Fort Night.

She might look like she’s thinking “What are you giving it, dickhead?” but peel away the layers of resentment and she’s having a blast underneath.

It’s that magical time of the week again when we build the dog fort, as you can see Juno simply cannot contain her enthusiasm.

It’s Thursday night so you know what that means; Juno is doing bird in Dogatraz while I strip and vacuum our huge, stupid couch.

It’s Thursday night which means Juno has to do a stretch in Dogwood Scrubs while I clean the living room cos I’m a domesticated, soy-drinking, beta-male.

Soon as I had taken this photo she gave me the finger and demanded her “fakkin phone call”.

It’s clean up night which means Juno is doing porridge in Dogtanamo Bay.

It’s Thursday evening so that means Juno is doing a stretch with “Big Dave” at Wandsworth while I mop the tiles.

Juno is in the brig while I strip our stupid oversized couch and mop the floors. Although she may look like she’s just received some bad news don’t believe that face, this is the highlight of her week.

It’s her 8th birthday today but she’s still off in her cell at Dog Parkhurst while I mop the floors cos I'm an ‘orrible bastard screw.

It’s a day late but Juno is back in the gulag breaking rocks while I make the domicile shine like Turkey teeth.

As you can see she’s settling in and approaching incarceration with her winning smile and happy-go-lucky attitude.

It’s clean up night again so Juno is confined to quarters. As you can see she by her vacant Velvetine Rabbit expression she’s in a right strop …anyone would think I’d had her wife’s name in my f’ing mouth.

Still scuttled from the ’rona so I have outsourced the construction of Juno’s bastille to a subcontractor who, I think we can all agree, has done a lacklustre job.

It’s been a minute (*cough* long Covid *cough*) but dog prison is back. As you can see, Juno is thrilled with this turn of events …don’t let her half-witted, jelly brain expression fool you, she’s super excited.

It’s domestic slavery night again so Juno is back doing porridge while I mop the tiles, trading snout with Fletch and Genial Harry Grout.

It’s emasculation night so as I mop the tiles in my apron and hair curlers Juno is stuck in Dogsom Prison waiting for Johnny Cash to start.

Thoroughbred arse-kicker Juno is relaxing before she takes home the gold in all categories at Saturday’s West Park Dog Show, whilst muggins here mops the tiles like a castrated domestic slave.

We’ve been in London this week and I’ve really missed this girl… but that doesn’t mean her sentence is getting reduced! I’ve marched her through traitors gate and into the bloody tower while I mop the tiles like some domesticated and broken capon.

It’s too hot in lock-up today so I’ve put Juno in a cabriolet cell while I mop the tiles like one of Pharaoh’s kitchen wenches, lamenting the continuing decline of my masculinity.

Juno is getting belligerent in dog prison today, she’s just said she’s gonna “pull a Bronson”.

I’d like to step in and stamp this four-legged uprising out but I’m mopping the tiles, reduced to a toothless castrato performing domestic chores for my female overlord.

Juno is camping out in a pillow fort while I strip our stupid, massive couch and mop the tiles like an impotent domestic servant reflecting upon a time in the long, dark past when he was vital and sparked with the electricity of raw masculinity.

It’s Thursday night which can mean only one thing. Juno is looking longingly out of her cell while I contemplate my memoirs - Observations from a Vacuum Cleaner: The Hobbling of Manhood in a New Millennium - coming to a WH Smith near you when I can be arsed to write it.

Two days late this week but the wanted fugitive is safely back behind bars with a fresh GI Jane haircut as I strip the couch and mop the tiles, giving a defiant finger to the patriarchy and their traditionally gendered household chores.

Homeslice is in chokey again looking at me with a mixture of pity and disgust as I mop the tiles like a shackled eunuch keeping time with the death rattle of his dying masculinity.

Juno is relegated to the Greendale Pillow Fort while I mop the tiles. I used to be Winger, now I’m barely even Pierce.

She’s out but she can’t leave, classic institutionalised like Brooks but she’s going back in Shawshank soon as the mop comes out.

Captain Caveman is relegated to Cushion Henge while I strip the couch and mop the tiles in a futile attempt to pacify my female overlord.

It’s Thursday evening. That can mean only one thing! It’s time for me to castrate myself upon the alter of domesticity as Juno looks on thinking “…what happened to you man? You were my hero.”

Less of a pillow-fort and more of a convertable sports pillow-car. She’s speeding past me laughing as I mop the floors like the downtrodden protagonist at the start of an 80’s high school blockbuster.

Another week, another shoddily fabricated canine Bastille to keep Juno off the poop deck as I swab it like some defeated cabin boy.

Juno is lording it up in her makeshift manor laughing at me as I mop the tiles like the effeminate sidekick of the head cheerleader who lacks the nut-strength to tell her he’s in love with her.

It’s been a minute but she’s back doing hard time in dog jail while I mop the tiles like a gelded man-slave who has accepted his lot and given up all hope.

She’s just popped out of her cave to give a pitying glance at her, once hero, now effeminate dogsbody as I mop the tiles like a broken agent of despair.

Juno’s cell in dog prison now features a £110 dog bed… no, you read that correctly, one hundred and ten pounds.

I have been wearing the same NEXT boxer shorts for the last 10 years but Juno needs a £110 bed.

It’s that time of the week when Juno does a stretch in dog prison so I can tear off my love spuds and burn them on the alter of domestic slavery.

For the eagle eyed viewers who follow the unfolding narrative of my protracted castration you’ll notice she isn’t sat in her £110 bed anymore. Like casting pearls before swine she’s decided she doesn’t like it and is back in her tatty old shit one. No taste this girl… she gets it from her mother.

Juno stands vigil in disbelief of my undoing; to be made sterile like one of Huxley’s artificial freemartins - grown, conditioned and deployed for the sole purpose of mopping bastard floors.

Juno drops an arm out of the window of her pillow truck and casts a indifferent eye over some toothless Cletus in filthy dungarees mopping the tiles outside his trailer.

Juno hangs her head in defeat as she watches her hero mop the tiles as though Hercules, upon returning triumphantly with Cerberus, has popped on an apron and started baking scones.

D - “What light through yonder cushion prison breaks? It is the east, and Juno is the sun.”

J - “O Daneo, Daneo, wherefore art thou Daneo? Mopping the tiles like a total C… apulet!?" *swipesleft

Juno epitomises ‘Einstein’s Insanity’ as she watches intently, coiled and breathless as I do the same thing I do every single week like she expects Bonios and squirrels to shoot out of my arse. It will blow her mind when I start mopping the tiles again like the worn out agent of predictability I have been reduced to.

Thursday afternoon again innit. You might notice that the canine bastille is a little lop-sided today. I asked Juno to move over but she copped this shit attitude with me, I think she’s been on the Germaine Greer again. I’d better get on with mopping before she starts burning her lead.

Must be Thursday is it? Juno’s vacant expression reflects my own empty husk, drained of joie de vivre by the endless monotony of domestic servitude. I dream that secretly she is keeping a journal chronicling my struggle so I can be posthumously held aloft as a trailblazer in the minds of future brow-beaten men with mops.

Now that the floor is down in the dining room we don’t have to live like mental hoarders anymore and Juno can have her throne back. As you can see she is thrilled that I can emasculate myself once more, mopping the tiles like a gelded eunuch.

Another Thursday… another night of Juno watching with complete indifference as I smash the patriarchy one gender role at a time, mopping the floors like a giant capon.

It’s 400°c and my spuds feel like toffee apples but preggo has cracked the whip like a bloated Indiana Jones so the domestic chores must be performed even if I drop dead from heat exhaustion. Juno has been deputised to make sure I don’t toss it off, hence her cocky (and absolutely not vacant at all) expression.

Like all females, there is nothing Juno enjoys more that watching a man dash himself against the rocks of domestic servitude. She might be confined to dog prison while I clean the house but hers is a short sentence, mine is eternal. When I finally shuffle off and transcend this vale of tears, Saint Peter will be waiting for me with a bucket off hot, soapy water saying “Chop chop dickhead, the tiles need doing.”

Ronald McDogald is sleeping off a Big Mac while I run my fingers to bloody stumps cleaning the nest. There was a Roomba in the Prime Day sale that’s kicking my arse now for not buying it.

As I mop the tiles like a deflated castrato, Juno gives me a look from her cushion prison that says the same thing we’re all thinking… how long is Betty going to eek out this pregnancy? At this rate the kid will pop out five years old in a full school uniform like Angus Young and go straight from the hospital into double maths. We suspect it’s all a ploy to keep me in domestic shackles.

This will be the last pillow fort designed and built before baby arrives. We’ve had enough of the protraction, talked it over and one way or another that kid is showing up this weekend if I have to climb up there myself and guide it out on Juno’s lead.

It’s been a while but I simply can’t put it off any longer. Time to castrate myself and offer my spuds to the pagan gods of female empowerment and domesticity as I strip, vacuum and mop the living room. I pray my boy grows up in a world of Roomba’s with mop funtionality.

Remember when I used to build pillow forts and mop the tiles? Well I’m back baby! As you can see Juno is thrilled to be doing fresh porridge in dog prison as I metaphorically slice off my conkers and burn them at the alter of misandry.

Saturday is the new Thursday at Villa Straylite. As you can see, Juno is literally bursting with enthusiasm as I vacuum the furnishings and mop the tiles like a nameless clone, awoken from cryosleep for the sole purpose of wearing my fingers to bloody, useless stumps fulfilling the Rebecca's endless Herculean trials.

What? …hyperbole?! That’s the most rediculous conclusion anyone has ever jumped to in the history of mankind.

...fuck you mop bucket

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