Something is obviously dead in my back yard. I know this because my dogs have come in from playing and they reek of rotting corpse. It must be a dog thing. They love to roll in dead stuff. What a disgusting habit, and one that doesn’t seem to bring them any benefit except the pleasure of watching me dry heave.
Given that I have a job that affords me the privilege to wax philosophical, I was thinking about my stinky dogs today, and I asked myself the following: What is the human equivalent to rolling in dead stuff? As self-destructive as we tend to be, there surely must be one.
I did read an article once that said that since dogs are ruled by smell the way we are ruled by sight, their rolling in dead stuff is the equivalent of us wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Quite often not a good idea, but we do it anyway.
It’s true that we do things that seem brilliant to us, but result in the irritation/disgust/avoidance of those around us. (Well, I never do, of course, but a lot of the rest of you seem to.) We follow the pack even when that pack is doing something idiotic. Just go to a Trump rally and you’ll witness this. (Come to think of it, I tend to see Trump as the very stinky stuff my dogs like to roll in.)
Is it possible that we roll in metaphorical dead stuff without even realizing that we are doing so? (I mean, things even worse than wearing Hawaiian shirts, because I confess I own a few of those.) I vow to try to be more mindful of these things moving forward. Beware the dead stuff. It’s bad. Bad, bad, bad.
I have to admit that this thought experiment has made me feel a little more tolerant of my dogs. Perhaps they mean well. Or maybe they just really like listening to me mutter while they’re getting bathed every day.
The View from a Drawbridge 
To them, of course, it smells good…You might want to get a gas mask and some gloves and patrol the back yard till the offending item is found. Seriously though, I can’t understand the prejudice in this culture against Hawaiian shirts and other very colorful items. Bring on the colors, say I.
Prejudice is the thing people roll in. I mean, we all have our inborn ones but the habit of letting them cause us to dump on other folks who aren’t hurting anything, that should be washed off.
I agree. I mean, if I wear a silk shirt in an office, why is that considered professional if it’s a subdued floral print, but NOT professional if it’s a tye dye print using the same color scheme? Food for thought.
Sometimes we roll in the dead stuff because we’ve gone nose blind and it looks OK. If we’re fortunate our sense of smell returns before the stench is permanently embedded. I’m still not entirely rid of the stink from an abusive ex. I wish I’d gone with the Hawaiian shirt instead… 🙂
Yes, Hawaiian shirts are a lot easier to take off.
Took a road trip once… my friends Akita rolled in a huge dead fish… on the first day… of a week-long trip…
Delightful.
yeah