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Quote of the Day: Meeting a Coronavirus Lunatic
“It is my experience that if we make the effort to listen to people when we meet them … it is then easy to find something to like in practically everyone.” — Bryant H. McGill
Oh stuff it, McGill. Your starry-eyed philosophy would have thrown up its hands in despair if it ever came across a guy I met the other day.
A totally non-gratuitous photo of Bob for this post.
Before we meet that guy, I need to say a few words about Bob, who has turned Marie and me into scofflaws. You see, we often take off Bob’s leash in parks that are posted with those darn signs that read, “Leash Your Dog.” Bob enjoys his leashless romps so much that we just can’t deny the pooch his little pleasures.
But we only do this when we’re on paths that are wide and sparsely frequented. Sometimes Bob meets other off-leash dogs, like the one you see above. Bob takes no guff off the big dogs. I don’t either, as you will discover later in this post.
Bob is a mild-mannered dog who trots along next to us and rarely even looks up at someone coming toward us on the other side. Most people smile when they see Bob.
The hulking, bearded, bemasked guy who met us on the path two days ago didn’t. In fact, when he got within 15 or so feet from Bob, he stopped, backed up in horror, and shouted, “Get that [expletive] dog away from me. Don’t you know that dogs spread the coronavirus!?”
“It’s highly unlikely,” I replied, “Even if he had the virus, which in animals is extremely rare, he would still have to get close enough to lick your nose.” The hulking guy sulked. He was apparently not in the mood to engage in a little banter concerning dog to human transmission of the coronavirus.
But he wasn’t finished yet: “And get that [expletive] dog on a leash. Don’t you know the [expletive] leash laws?” The guy was full of rhetorical questions.
I was a bit taken aback, so I asked Marie to leash up Bob.
I was about ten feet from the guy when I took a step toward him to say something to placate the guy, but I didn’t get a chance. The bearded one backed off like I was an active carrier of the Black Death and screamed, “Get away from me, you old piece of [expletive]!” He apparently thought that terribly clever so he repeated it, “Get away from me, you old piece of [expletive].”
That was a milestone of sorts. I’m 82 years old and that was the first time in my life that someone had called me an old piece of [expletive]. One likes to keep track of these things.
He got the “old” part right, but I think his addition of the phrase, “piece of [expletive],” was a bit overwrought and gratuitous, don’t you?
The scene was so ridiculous that I started to laugh. “Old piece of [expletive] — ha, ha, ha, that’s a good one,” I said, my laughter dripping with sarcasm.
Marie, like my mom and my first sergeant before her, warned me that my wiseacre nature was going to get me into trouble someday. I‘ve never listened to any of them, but this guy might be the trouble that they’ve been predicting.
I’m pretty sure the bearded one would like to have attacked me, but he had already shown he was afraid to get near me and my toxic swarm of coronacooties. That is, the guy’s own paranoia protected me. I wasn’t sorry to see the guy continue on his way down the path.
Here’s what Marie and I talked about as we continued our walk:
- Is the daily drumbeat of virus news for the past three months—worldwide deaths, ten different versions of how you can catch the virus, the danger of comorbidities, and so forth — driving some people over the edge, people whose personalities may already have been susceptible to fear and hysteria? The guy I met in the park is not the only one I’ve seen with unreasoning reactions to the virus. Even in the open air, some walkers detour so far around Marie, Bob, and me that it’s like we have coronavirus bugs that are poised to leap 20 feet and then take a 90-degree turn up their noses.
- Why are so many people wearing masks in the open air? Have they not heard that catching the virus while they’re outside walking in parks and neighborhoods is nigh impossible? I even see people driving their cars alone wearing masks.
- I’ve had a few of these tense encounters over the last few years involving Bob, and I just can’t resist responding like a smartass when some jerk tells me, in that arrogant tone that bullies use, that I need to do what he tells me to do. It just gets my hackles up. I usually laugh in their faces. I may have abandoned my common sense in my old age. Nah, that’s not it. I was born this way. Marie tells me that I’m going to get beat up someday. She’s probably right. I really need to stop setting these guys off. It’s about as smart as taunting a belligerent drunk.
- By the way, have you come across any overreaction similar to the ones I’ve described?
I confess to doing this but only when running errands to multiple places that require masks.
Yes. My governor NJ Phil “Nursing Home Serial Killer” Murphy.
I had a hard time holding in my disdain for people exercising in Texas in masks, but my husband rightly pointed out that someone else’s choice doesn’t impact me (until it does).
When it became an order to wear masks everywhere in Austin, I was assaulted while walking my dog. “You need a mask now.” But no! I’d read the order. “I’m exercising. That’s exempted.” In other words…. leave me alone.
I will say I give people a LOT of space when walking though. This isn’t because I am worried at all about the virus. (I believe in science.). This is because there are so many irrational people on the paths, and I don’t want them yelling at me. I also, genuinely, don’t want to make people who have been half frightened to death by their government feel more scared. (I wouldn’t care about the bearded one, but most people are nice… just…. they have their own fears.)
Basil,
No, the COVID commando whack job should have been on a leash.
Regards,
Jim
The “COVID commando whack job” may just have been a trail user who objects to encountering Nancy Pelosi’s unleashed dog.
Good lord, what city do you live in?
I imagine, given the bearded fellow’s personality and apparent quality of life, that he won’t make it to 82.
You should have told him that beards make masks, which don’t work at any rate, another 50% less effective… and that the chances of his getting covid as a result of not shaving his beard are about 1,000% higher than the chances of his getting it from his dog (and that all of those chances are still well below .1%) … and that if he’s really concerned, maybe he should shave his [expletive] face.
Yes, I would likely have lost my temper with a guy like that.
I have refused to even carry a mask at all. I take a bandanna into the grocery store and wear it around my neck. Virtually nobody has ever said a thing. Once or twice, I was asked to pull the mask up, which I politely did (both times it was the person taking my money) and then immediately removed it when I was done. This madness will not stop until enough people stop playing along.
Maybe a coughing fit mixed with a couple of sneezes would have sent him packing. (-:
Yes.
Was the guy’s name ‘Karen’?
Is it possible that this was primariy a leash-law encounter rather than a mask encounter?
Basil, I think it was a bit of both, along with a lot of paranoia on his part.
Basil,
Bob is a very decent thoughtful dog. If he hadn’t been he would have bit the creep. He should have.
Regards,
Jim
And a bit of hubris on yours, Kent? As you say, you have had similar encounters pre-covid. Sorry, but I’ve encountered a seemingly-docile dog on my regular walking trail who lunged and broke skin.
On my bicycle routes close to home, it seems that Trump signs outnumber the others by about 50:1. But there is one rural residence that usually has Democrat signs out that hasn’t put anything out yet. There are Trump yard signs in several places where I’ve never before seen political yard signs.
If I go in the other direction, into town, the ratio is a little less favorable to Trump.
(I don’t wear a mask when bicycling. I do wear one when going inside most buildings other than home.)
I like a dog, my own dog. I don’t like dogs I don’t know. In my my younger sporty Ironman training days I ran and biked many miles and came across many dogs. On the bike, if I saw them coming, a squirt from the water bottle did the trick. A sneak attack always scared the crap out of me. One particular dog was always loose and always chased me. One day the dog saw me me coming, but didn’t see the motor cycle coming the other way. I had a second or two to think about what was going to happen. Running I never used foul language but a loose dog looking for friend at mile ten wasn’t well received. I especially enjoyed the beatific clueless owner grin and “he won’t bite”. My response was usually “If I stay out of your backyard, that wouldn’t be a concern”. At mile two my response was “does he have teeth?”
When things start off like this:
I’d say the burden of proving reasonableness is on the other guy. A dog bite doesn’t seem to be the area of concern.
At the beginning of the “panic”, my friend in Lakeland FL had a similar thing happen in Publix. The aisle was people-less except her. A man went by and starting swearing behind her. My friend looked up startled, thinking there was another toilet paper fight on aisle 5. Then she realized – was he swearing at me?? Yes, she didn’t have a mask as it was early on. She told her husband and he very calmly and courteously told the “swearer” outside to apologize – I think his open carry weapon was showing………the guy did and that was that…….
You are in PA? Are there a lot of Trump signs?
It’s usually easier to establish the other party’s unreasonableness if you’re not the one initially breaking the law.
The jerk was clearly pointing out Bob’s doggie privilege……
I’m about eight miles West of Little Worshington. (I know you’ll know where that is). There are nothing but Trump signs. We’re at ground zero for Marcellus Shale, and Biden’s promise to ban fracking (whatever he’s saying today, that’s what he said he would do) doesn’t sit well with the natives.
I have not seen a single Biden sign anywhere out here. I suspect that if I go into Washington, and out the other side to East Washington, where the rich people live–or what passes for rich people in these parts–I would see some. I’ve seen one lonely “Republican for Biden” bumper sticker, but that was from out-of-state.
Washington County went for Trump last time, and I expect it will again.
Do you know Kittie Lu Vail or the Contes?
To a couple of you who are concerned about the danger to strangers when Bob is off leash, I understand your concern. I don’t like dog owners who let their dogs rush up to me, all the while saying, “He’s a good dog.” I have trouble trusting a complete stranger’s estimation of his beloved dog’s temperament.
But Bob is a different story. I only let him off leash when there’s plenty of space and time to leash him up. More importantly, Bob is a little, mild-mannered dog who stays on his side of the path. He never approaches a stranger unless the stranger wants him to. Never. In fact, Bob trots along and completely ignores the people walking on the path toward us. He doesn’t even look their way. He will go off trail, but only to the right side.
Bob is a cute dog, so most people smile at him, on or off leash.
If the person coming toward us has a dog, we always leash up Bob.
The paths we walk on have very little traffic.
I love dogs, have been bitten by ill-trained dogs who have chased me while running, and have often ignored laws about leashing dogs when my own needed a run off leash to be healthy and happy, though I also choose places where encounters with humans are infrequent.
To be honest, I view a lot of leash laws as further evidence of an erosion in the expectation for personal responsibility in our country. People should train their dogs. If they don’t, they should be held liable for their dog’s bad behavior, just as it was on me if my kid threw a rock through a neighbor’s window or bit another kid in preschool.
This is no comfort, of course, when running down a country road and being chased by a slobbering fiend intent on taking a bite out of one’s backside. But I don’t think leash laws change the reality that one will encounter such dogs.
Regardless, there are polite ways to interact with someone else one encounters in the wild when concerned about a dog, and this was just not it.
Amen!
I have yet to see anyone walking / running / biking on our town’s primary exercise trail with a mask. Nor among the people walking around our neighborhood (with or without dogs).
When riding my bicycle on area roads, I have occasionally been chased by a dog who had been on his property but ran out to chase me on the road. But, I have rarely been bothered by a dog being walked off leash in the company of its owner. I usually assume that if a dog owner has allowed his dog off leash, the owner is confident the dog will behave well and not bother me. The funniest was coming up on a young woman and her dog, with the dog having a collar and a leash, but the dog was holding the human end of the leash in its mouth (i.e., the dog had both ends of the leash). As I approached, the woman (human) grabbed the human end of the leash out of the dog’s mouth, presumably to reassure me that she had control over the dog. But, the dog looked at its owner with an offended look of, “Hey, I’m supposed to hold that end of the leash.”
I never had a problem with off leash dogs when cross country skiing in parks near Rochester NY when I lived there. My thesis was that an owner who took his dog out in the cold and snow was an owner who paid a lot of attention to the dog, and dogs who are paid attention to rarely exhibit behavior problems.
LOL. I grew up in a culture in which it was acceptable (appropriately so, IMHO), without governmental edict, and without malicious intent, to leash one’s children, and it is still a generally well-tolerated behavior in the UK. I don’t know a single child who grew up with a complex (or even a simplex or a duplex) because of it.
My particular harness was old (probably my mother’s) white leather, with pale blue bunnies embossed on the chest-plate, and three jingle-bells across the front. I loved it, and liked nothing more than jumping up and down to make the bells ring when my mother was trying to engage in conversation with a friend.
Perhaps we should consider bringing the practice to a position of social acceptability in this country, and expand the definition of “child” to any person who’s still on their parents’ health insurance or living in their parents’ basement due to demonstrated lack of interest in self-sufficiency and self-reliance, and an overabundance of interest in video-gaming, “organizing,” and Tweeting.
(Note to those “child rights” advocates who are girding themselves up to deliver themselves of a trumpet-blast in reply: This comment is, in part, a joke. I’ll let you figure out which part, but I’ll tell you that my delight in wearing my harness and drawing attention to myself with the bells was quite real.)
A year ago I was bitten by a dog off leash in its yard, in the presence of its owner. I was on a bicycle, and this was probably on a road that didn’t get many bicycles. In such places dogs aren’t often socialized to deal with bicycles. And a dog might go into protective mode when its owner is near, especially when it’s of a breed (or in this case a mix) that has a tendency to be aggressive. In this case the owner had paperwork showing that the dog had had its vaccinations, so it didn’t have to be quarantined.
A year or so ago I had trouble a couple of times with a dog that got aggressive out on the road when its owner’s children were in the yard, playing. I didn’t get bitten by that one. I haven’t seen it lately, but the kids haven’t been playing in the yard lately, either. The owner was from another country, and may just have been renting the house for a year or so. (He tracked me down the first time the dog came after me to talk to me and try to explain his dog.)
I have a few methods I use to deal with dogs. Outrunning them doesn’t always work as well as it used to, now that I’m older and slower, especially when I’m going uphill. Sometimes I’ll call to a poorly trained dog, “Come, puppy! Wanna go for a run?” To a poorly trained dog, the word “come” means stop and go the other direction. It works sometimes, but sometimes going for a run is exactly what the dog wants. I’ve led some of them a few miles from their homes. Most dogs don’t have the stamina or attention span for anything like that, but some can surprise a person.
But the one rule that holds every time is that there is no one rule that works every time. Every situation and every dog is different.
When I lived on Bald Head Island NC there wasn’t a leach law. Practically everyone had a dog. However there was a constant drumbeat for a leach law. We finally had a town hall meeting of most of the 250 or so voters and discovered it was one couple causing all the aggravation. The wife had been mauled by a dog as a child. She admitted that it was now a phobia. We politely asked her to seek professional help rather than have all our dogs suffer. All dog owners agreed to try to avoid her while with their dogs. She was actually a very nice person. A year or so later they left the Island.
My son is alive today because I leashed him for walking. Up to about age 4 he would happily run into the street if unleashed. And it also saved my sanity.