For two or three days, my knife would bang around in my pocket, reminding me as I sat at my desk that if ever a hurricane struck, the roof blew off, and I had to slit out the cubicle cloth to make a lean-to, I’d be ready. (Whatever a lean-to is.)

You take a bird that can’t fly and can barely peck, and you decide its life is over. That’s it. You are master of life and death. Sounds straightforward to many of us, but in real life you catch the animal and stick a knife in its throat.

I didn’t know bears ran from cows. That would comfort me, if I couldn’t picture myself running with them. Cows are big. They have horns. But that’s another blog.

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