Spit is an amazing substance. It’s uses are wide and varied. It’s used by romantics for love and haters to express disdain. Rubbed on a finger, it cleans a child’s face or a minor spillage. When my daughter was young, it was an opportunity for “Spit Wars” where the last one touched with spit from the opponent’s finger (or tongue) loses.
Recently, I had my car serviced. I asked them to check out why the window behind the driver’s seat was grumpy about going up and down. I was certain what the problem was.
My dog, Sheba, loves to go in the car. As much as she loves it, she pants the entire time—as long as it takes to make the trip. She’s often in the car to run errands and take walks while continually panting. We go to the Oregon coast a couple times a year. It is nearly a four hour trip. She pants the whole time right behind the driver’s left ear just in front of the back window.
I figured the cement properties of long term dog spit had gummed up the window works. True enough, the service folks told me everything in the door was fine. They cleaned and lubed the internal mechanism. However, the electric window switch in the arm rest was seriously corroded. The switch in the other side worked fine. And what do you think corroded this hardly used switch? The magic of dog spit. They are ordering a new one. It will be installed tomorrow. It took two years for Sheba’s saliva to do its dirty work.
Spit is also a marker of relationships. Adolescent girls know they are best friends when they can exchange bubble gum without a second thought. In romantic relationships, french kissing including a full exchange of mouth fluids is considered a move towards intimacy. Spit makes an excellent lubricant in certain sexual activities.
Yet, spit is also a tool to express complete disdain. If I spit on your shoes, I disrespect you. If I spit at your chest, you disgust and offend me. If I spit in your face, I hate you with all my heart. Having your spit land on someone can be the start of a physical altercation. “Don’t you spit at me, you little punk!”
Spit is used to identify criminals. Spit is used to measure various medical conditions. Most recently, spit is used to identify long lost or unknown relatives which in itself generates a passel of good news/bad news.
Used in this way, spit purports to reveal true biological relatives by spitting into a test tube and mailing it to a lab for analysis. This can have unintended consequences. Facebook has support groups with thousands of members for people who discovered one or both of their previously thought biological parents are not actually their biological parents. The groups are delineated by those whose parents are still alive and those whose parents are dead. Does this erase all those years of family experience in one fell swoop? Are all those family dinners, holidays, late night talks, and vacations now null and void?
This DNA reveal has allowed the police to identify serial killers whether they take a test or not just because a cousin submitted their spit for identification. The near match led the police to the alleged killers.
One friend’s family members wanted to use their spit DNA to identify their racial and geographic background. As a recovered alcoholic who experienced blackouts in his youth, my friend refused the DNA test. He jokingly advised his family he feared learning he had committed a crime during a long ago blackout. He was kidding but then who knows what will turn up?
It has allowed people to identify their racial background. “Are my people from where I think they're from?” God only knows what the Hitlers of the world might one day do with this information. It’s all public. I can imagine Hitler scratching his head and rubbing his hands gleefully, “Wait a minute…They voluntarily gave you this information and you got them to actually pay for the privilege?! Isn’t technology wonderful?”
It can inform people of their tendency toward certain medical conditions including the gravely serious and merely odd. Do you want to know if your DNA says you are at risk for early onset dementia? How would that change the way you live your life? Some people don’t want to know. Some folks refuse to take the test for fear that some future health insurance company will refuse to cover them.
The uses of spit knows no bounds. Are you a dog person? Can your dog lick your face or are you like Lucy in Charlie Brown who runs screaming when licked by Snoopy, “Aaack, dog germs! I’ve got dog germs!” When your cat’s scratchy tongue gently scrubs your finger, do you think, “Oh my god, I know where that tongue has been!”
And finally a spit love story. My daughter was two when I became partners with Ronnie although Ronnie had known Alex since birth. Alex has no biological or legal relationship with Ronnie but Ronnie is her third mom. One day when Alex was four, she asked Ronnie how they were related. Ronnie said touching her chest, “We are related by heart and related by spit.” Alex was not that interested in the heart part but was totally thrilled by the mention of a spit relationship. It’s a kid’s logic of love. What could be more powerful? Related by spit is certainly good enough for me.
L’Chaim.
Joceile
6.3.19
[Picture of Sheba lovingly licking my hand.]
