Wert’s Werds: I want to lick you!

Laws.

We have the rule of law for a reason.

Most of you reading this column in the Globe are one): probably shocked to see they actually allowed my crazy rear end to have a column, and two), agree we need to have the rule of law and to enforce it on a consistent basis. 

That, however, is not always the case. 

Recently, I found myself on the receiving end of a very moist situation because it was clear a certain community in rural area does not put a lot of emphasis on a particular area of law.

Let me paint the picture for you.

You may not know one of my hobbies involves my beloved 10-year-old Prius C and my equally as old Canon camera. Together my two mechanical compadres and I have put tens of thousands of miles under our belt seeing as much as we can of this wonderful creation of the world and capturing images we would later force people to see on social media. 

Driving relaxes me. Allows me to refocus on the important things of life. It also gives me a wonderful opportunity to experience small towns all across the South and the true diversity of their residents. 

I’m always amazed when I go to a small community of a few hundred people and drive around their town square area. I can usually tell a lot from the signs welcoming you to their community or what you see in store windows. If there’s a lot of items with a local high school’s sports logo, you know high school sports is king in the community. If you see a large building for the local historical society, you know they take a lot of pride in their past. If you can’t see a police station anywhere, you know you might be in trouble.

I should have realized last Saturday I was in trouble.

I came to a small community who had “R.J.’s Diner” along Main Street. I wanted to get some lunch, and because there is no better place to get a meal than a small mom-and-pop owned diner in a rural community, I stopped at R.J.’s. I wasn’t disappointed either: they had a special that day for lunch of a hamburger steak in gravy with homemade mashed potatoes, homemade creamed corn and green beans so fresh they still snapped even though they had been cooked. And the pie? Oh, Lord. Let’s just say if Mary (owner R.J.’s wife) doesn’t have a deal with the devil to make things that good, then I don’t know how she did it.

When I left the diner, I was rather full, and I thought I’d take a walk around the downtown area to stretch my legs and digest a little before getting back in the car. I walked down Main Street, past a few open boutiques and a hardware store, when I saw a sign advertising an antiques and collectables business with an arrow pointing to my left. As a collector of vinyl records, I try to stop at places like that, so I turned the corner.

And that’s when I saw him.

There he was. Proud as any creature on God’s green earth. Sitting in the sun just soaking up the surprisingly not that hot late July afternoon. Hair slightly blowing in the breeze. They were lost in thought until I turned the corner and my foot crunched some gravel which for some reason was on the sidewalk.

A lovely, well-cared-for, obviously out of their residence Golden Retriever. I never got his name, so let’s call him Clarence because he just looked like a Clarence.

Clarence’s entire face lit up when he looked over and saw me standing there. The kind of light which had you seen it in the midst of your deepest depth you would immediately have uttered the International Sign of Incredible Cuteness, “Aww….” 

I was trapped and Clarence knew it. He stood up and walked in my direction never breaking eye contact.

I looked around for an owner or another human being and found myself in a situation where there was nobody there to help me. I was going to have to navigate this upcoming canine conflagration on my own.

Clarence stopped in front of me and sat down. He looked up and me and that was the moment I experienced something which sometimes happens between a long-time pet owner and their dog, but rarely with an animal you just met.

Mental telepathy.

“Hi!” Clarence’s voice yelled in my brain. “I WANT TO LICK YOU!”

I didn’t know what to do. 

Hi, buddy, I said.

Clarence took that as consent.

He sprung from his seated position, paws on my chest, and proceeded to give me a big ol’ slurp right up the center of my face. While Clarence may have looked the beautiful animal sitting in the mid-afternoon sun, his doggy breath would have killed half of Napoleon’s army. It smelled like a baby’s diaper filled with rancid Indian food. It reminded me of the scent which would pop up in church on Sunday morning if Grandpa had eaten beans the night before causing Grandma to say “Oh, my God” a little too loudly making people think she was slain in the spirit.

The initial lick was followed by a number of follow up licks of various intensity, which required me to rub the sides of Clarence’s head including a few good ear rubs. He seemed to enjoy the ear rubs.

I sat down on a small stone wall and spent a good 15 minutes dodging wet doggy kisses and giving Clarence a good pet down. Yes, in the end it was a fun experience because you can’t spend time petting a happy dog without getting a rush of endorphins, but that initial slurp? The doggie breath? It was a rather high price to pay for the fur-enhanced high.

The takeaway of this for me is that this small, rural community has a real problem enforcing its leash laws. Is it really to the benefit of a community to have cuddly, friendly, toxic-waste scented breath containing dogs sitting around at various places unencumbered by restraints? Do those animals bringing unabashed love and joy to anyone who passes by really make a community better? Where is the rule of law here?

Then again, I guess some laws are just begging to be broken.