Do you know why dogs bark at mailmen? I didn’t.

But now that we’re dog-sitting an otherwise sweet Golden, I’ve found out. Dogs bark at mailmen because they believe they scare mailmen away EVERY SINGLE DAY.

They don’t really, of course. But in their canine craniums, it makes sense: I bark crazily at the uniformed guy on the doorstep and my barking scares that mofo away! Every single day I protect my fortress from this potential assassin/rapist/burgler. Every single day, he tries again, but I triumph.

Can you imagine how wildly addictive this thought is?

After I was done chuckling at the logic of this — every day but Sundays and holidays! — it struck me.

Life is the mailman and we are the dogs.

Not with the same government-worker regularity, life parades up our driveways with a sack of suffering on its hip. Cancer! Divorce! Ozone depletion!

And we lock the doors and bark at it to go away. Only, rather than bellowing, we worry or drink or gamble or shop. That’s our barking. Does it keep life’s ills at bay? Not a chance. But it numbs us into believing we’re in control for one more day… until the next Garnet Hill catalog arrives.