WEST GOSHEN TWP, Pa.–”Screw the pooch”—short for “man humps dog”— is an expression made popular in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book about the Mercury space program, The Right Stuff. To screw the pooch is to commit a horribly wrong and embarrassing mistake, one from which there is no recovering. Predictably dogs hate the expression because . . .
1. In real life everybody knows you’re a dog.
2. People are just getting used to the idea of gay marriage.
3. The expression is ass backward, according to all those German shepherds that appear in porn movies.
4. Cats got to choose first, therefore, we kick cats and screw pooches.
5. Pooch has unfortunate connotations, among them “lap dog” and “worthless-piece-of-shit dog.”
6. “Man’s best friend” doesn’t mean “man’s best friend with benefits.”
7. The parlor game Screw the Pooch is offensive and has caused serious injuries to dogs.
8. “Screw the pooch” is a gateway expression that leads to other, more disgusting, expressions like “doggy style,” “shoot the puppy,” or “dead dog bounce.”
9. What if screwing the pooch becomes a recognized service dog “service”? Imagine all the bother that will cause on airplanes.
10. Just because dogs sniff our business doesn’t mean they want us to screw them.
Next Kelly Clarkson: Why lesbians never screw their pooches
