THE LICK OF DEATH

The old man looked up from his black cane, scowled, and resumed his shuffle, failing to return my cheery “Good morning!” A depressing start to my morning walk. Oregon’s damp, gray winter – I don’t mind so much. Grumpiness is another matter. 

I shook off my funk just in time to confront another walker coming my way, this time with two free-roaming, pit-bull-type dogs. I eyed their formidable necks, bedecked in matching bandanas, as they surrounded me, and raised my arms out of easy-to-taste range.

“They’ll just lick you to death,” the old coot in a red-and-black-checkered jacket announced. The thought crossed my mind, “In what universe do you think I would want these gross animals to lick me to death?” But I kept my mouth shut and didn’t even glance at the guy as we passed. “Have a nice day,” he sneered after me. 

Dog people assume, mistakenly in my case, that everyone loves dogs. Especially their dogs. “Oh, he won’t bite.” Or, “She just wants to say hello.” Or, perhaps my favorite, “Trust me, they’re friendly.” These are the kind of lame excuses I hear as their precious Rottweiler sniffs my leg and decides whether to pee on it or nip a sample from my crotch.

Sometimes their little darlings will trot along obediently until I pass, then, their human’s attention elsewhere, tear off towards me. Or simply turn back and give me a look that says, “I could tear your throat out, you know.”

There really is a thing called the Lick of Death. A nasty bacteria, Capnocytophaga canimorsus, can live in dogs’ mouths. It’s an infection that, for the human lickee, can result in amputations and death. Yours, not the dog’s.

You can be cruising along in life, dum-de-dum, everything seeming fine, and BAM! Out-of-the-blue, a dog licks you on the mouth and before you know it you’re dead. 

I’ll admit it’s a long shot, but why take chances? There are enough risks without dog spit. A metaphorical “lick of death” can come from anywhere, not just from a dog. Car accident. Cancer. Parkinson’s. Heart attack. BAM! And your world turns upside down. It happens to everyone, sooner or later, and you don't get to pick the time or place. On the other hand, if you could pick the time and place, how would you choose? 

The writer, David Sedaris, in his essay, “Father Time,” bemoans the fate of growing old: “I can’t predict what’s waiting for us, lurking on the other side of our late middle age, but I know it can’t be good.” 

No doubt, there are downsides to growing old. Death, for example. And AARP solicitations. I am, however, fond of the old saw, “Any day upright is a good day.” Everything is relative and there are always worse alternatives, people who give you perspective, who make your own station in life look blessed.

When I got back from my walk to my car in the Walmart parking lot, a truck driver pushing a shopping cart back to his big-rig stopped next to my open window. “Do you know of a dog park around here?” 

His cart was filled with bags of dog food, cat food, and kitty litter. He said he had two big dogs and three cats living in his truck cab with him. He’d had a beaver, too, but had to get rid of it because “it got really mean.” He was hauling stage equipment to San Francisco for a Grateful Dead concert. Him and his menagerie, traveling together because his California house had burned down in the Paradise wildfire, and he had two more weeks before he could get into another place. I was going to warn him about his dogs and what I’d learned about the Lick of Death, but figured he had enough to worry about. I felt bad that I couldn’t at least direct him to a dog park.