I’m not sure where I draw the line when it comes to suing somebody. It would have to be fairly egregious. I don’t have much in the way of a structured philosophy of life, but a lot of it boils down to the “shit happens” school. Some of it happens to me, but I rarely think it’s happening at me, or that there’s any flinging involved, or a flinger.

I am a light consumer of the legal trade.

I do know I would not have thought to sue the owner of the town donkey for chomping me on the thigh. The donkey chomped, not the owner. But you have to sue the owner unless you intend to get recompensed in oats.

Nevertheless that is what happened in tiny Mitchell, Oregon, population 137. A woman who encountered the donkey and tried to “secure” it and get it back to its owner got a chunk taken out of her thigh and felt a lawsuit coming on. Everyone in town knew the donkey, whose name was Hiway. She knew the donkey, I assume, since she was trying to get him to go back home. By all accounts he was an upstanding donkey employed in the field of lawn-mowing. The woman’s lawyer contended the donkey was “loose,” a time-honored gambit of character assassination. She wants $49,500 for her injury.

I could have retired from the post office even earlier than I did if I’d sued for every dog bite I got. I have been bitten five times on my postal route—or, in the case of the first incident, on my ass. And back in the ‘70s, $250,000 was real money. That first one was early in my career and as an incident it seemed a little cartoonish, the hapless mailman trying to climb a tree with a dog in hot pursuit. I had to knock on the neighbor’s door, and she got out the Mercurochrome and a swab and I dropped my drawers and it was this whole thing. They aren’t allowed to sell Mercurochrome anymore, by the way.

Nevertheless, since I had been trying harder than I should have to deliver mail to a mailbox with an attack Golden Retriever under it—don’t scoff, that was one yellow bastard—I realized I’d more or less asked for it. It took the next four dog bites for me to put the Neither Rain Nor Sleet bit behind me. I had so much pride. But at a certain point, America, you can just pick up your Christmas catalogs and mattress-sale flyers at the post office.

The Postal Service would have happily sued on my behalf, but I like to retain customer relations. The last dog that bit me—on the biceps—was a miniature whippet, but I was kneeling to get the mail in a slot at the bottom of the door. The puncture marks were still visible a year later. Those people were rich as hell. But I liked them.

I don’t know how you can tell a donkey is likely to bite you. I know about dogs. I can tell when dogs are feeling chompy, and their owners are generally right there telling you they’re friendly. That’s a giveaway. I do remember being a child on vacation in South Dakota when we had to stop for some donkeys in the road. The donkey came up and licked my side window. I was so thrilled I never wanted that window washed again. Unfortunately, this was 1960. You pull into a gas station in 1960, your windows gon’ get washed. Someone’s gon’ to check your dipstick, hand you a map, tip his cap, and call you “Ma’am.” Donkey slobber don’t stand a chance.

Anyway, I don’t think much of the woman suing the donkey owner. I mean, it was the town donkey. Maybe the $49,000 is a ploy to get half that, and she really, really needs a new roof. I don’t know. Strikes me as being kind of like if I’d sued that neighbor lady for swabbing mercury on my ass.

I just hope the donkey countersued for getting thigh meat stuck in his teeth. He’s a vegetarian, after all.