While I think of my dog and my three-a-day forays into our surrounding area as WALKS, she thinks of them as SCAVENGER HUNTS.

Organic or not, she has not encountered many things she doesn’t, at least, TRY to eat.

I have fished out Q-Tips and cough drops and lots of different paper products from her jaws.  (Napkins from KFC are her favorites).

Not too long ago, I had a $140 vet bill for some lower tract unclogging that I was afraid to do myself.  She must have eaten too many napkins during a nighttime walk and was painfully unable to poop the next day.

Normally a gentle creature, she can be fierce when you try to take what she considers to be food from her mouth.

She will stare at me, when I attempt to open her clenched jaw to extract a candy wrapper or chicken bone or discarded glove.  I will take one hand and firmly place it around her face.  She’ll give me a Don’t even think about it look. 

She’s a dog, I’ll remind myself, and relinquish my grip as she’ll gulp some mystery snack down.  Not worth getting bit over, I’ll conclude.

So, we’re walking along Sacramento the other day.  I haven’t seen her assume the position yet, the one that cues me to get a plastic bag ready.  She’s happily sniffing her way down our route.  I notice that she’s lingering over what appears to be a whitish tangle of plastic. Its translucence suggests some sort of petroleum product.

Oh no, I think, what has she found that she’s about to ingest?

My right hand instinctively scrapes over the cement and picks up the object before she can close her jaws around it.

Eeewww! A used condom.

Without thinking, I fling it away from her reach and tighten my hold on her pink leash.  The condom, unfurled, plasters itself against an eight inch high fence designed to keep neighborhood dogs from peeing on small patches of front lawns.

I look at her as if she should understand my upset.  I shake a finger at her.  How could you think of eating such a thing?  I consider my own action.  How did I dare touch it?

It seems that a dogs’ big existential question is Can I eat it?  And, us humans, at key moments of our lives, are drawn to ask ourselves, Should I laugh or should I cry?

Probably during my middle school years, I heard something about what separates humans from other species is the ability to reason.  In retrospect, I have to disagree.  What makes our lives decidedly different from other life forms is the importance of EMOTIONS.

Navigating feelings is not easy.  Emotions are usually accompanied by conflict and confusion.

When I was 16, I remember getting a crush on a boy who ultimately fell for my best friend.  (I could totally understand why.)  Just a couple years ago, I totaled my fairly new Jetta, trying to make a sharp left into my alley after descending from commuter train tracks.

I had no problem walking away from the mangled metal that crinkled into the blond brick building at the mouth of my alley, but I couldn’t explain what actually happened.  I wasn’t clear about what I felt.

And jobs…Opportunities that were supposed to work out didn’t.  Temporary positions lasted for years.

Should I laugh or cry?  It’s not just a situation of the fates being fickle. Exercising our full range of feelings is complicated.

I joked with a friend recently, in a short Happy Birthday text. I wrote There are no emojis that sum up how I feel about you…

So, when I notice myself flummoxed by the choice, whether to LAUGH or CRY, I don’t want to tell myself to laugh…or cry.  I don’t want to pronounce one is superior to the other.

I  just want to remind myself to feel whatever I’m feeling fully.

If my impulse is to cry, I want to cry until my chest heaves and my vision becomes blurry from my eyes being awash in tears.  If I’m drawn to laugh, I want laugh until I my belly trembles, and I have to clench my pelvic muscles to avoid peeing in my pants.

Laughing or crying — whether alone or while someone else is watching — is no small thing.