I’m starting to come down off the ceiling now, but I think I was in shock most of the day. I don’t know for sure, because I don’t know what it feels like to be in shock. But if it’s a little like physical and emotional paralysis, both hitting at the same time, then that’s what happened after I was attacked by a pit bull this morning.

Okay, first of all, the dog didn’t bite me. It just lunged at me and clamped its jaws around my wrist. (Well, that’s a little like biting, I guess, except that it didn’t break the skin. Isn’t that a nice doggy?) And second of all, I don’t know for sure it was a pit bull. It looked like a bulldog, but I know bulldogs are gentle animals. So, going on reputation alone, I’m saying pit bull.

Here’s how it happened. I was leaving the post office and walking down the street toward where my car was parked. A man was walking this rather large dog on the same sidewalk. I moved toward the curb, because the dog was on a leash on the inside. As we passed each other, the dog leapt in front of its master and came straight at me, jaws to wrist.

The guy pulled the dog away before it had a chance to eat me, and I kept walking, a little slower and a little more wobbly now. I stopped and turned around, and the man looked at me and said, “Sorry.” I gave him a wave and walked away, as he tried to reason with the dog. “You know you’re not supposed to do that!” I heard him say. Well, that’s comforting.

It wasn’t until I was completely away from the incident that it hit me how close I might have come to being maimed for life. Maybe I never was in any real danger, because maybe the dog was trained not to bite down on human flesh, but I don’t know that for sure. It happened so fast that I was too stunned to react at the time, but the further away from it I got, the more frightened I became. And the more I wished I’d told the guy to keep his dog off the street without a muzzle.

There are probably a dozen other things I should have done at the time as well, but I don’t even want to think about that now. I made it through the day in a perfect daze, but at least I made it through. I’m better tonight than I was all day, and I think I’ll be over it by tomorrow, and ready to grab the new day by the wrist with my own steely jaw. Or not.

When I got home, I couldn’t find the mail that I’d had in my hand as the dog lurched at me. I don’t remember dropping it. I do remember putting it in the trunk of my car before I drove home, but when I got back to the house, only three catalogues were there, and no other mail. I don’t remember exactly what was in the mailbox, but I retraced all my steps three or four times looking for it. I even drove back to the post office. The best I can hope for is that someone found it and re-posted it, and I’ll get it tomorrow instead. That lapse is actually weighing on me tonight even more than the dog attack, so you can see how my thinking wanders down the wrong path sometimes.