Bears Can Be Such Dicks

It was already the wee hours, but I started a campfire then rationed out some woefully stale chips that the crunch had departed from eight months prior. And I sipped down two-and-a-half cans of beer.  Once my nerves finally calmed, sleep came readily. But I forgot to clean off the picnic table.

I woke to discover an overturned picnic table, the chip bag emptied and tore to tiny shred and strewn about, and empty beer cans with their ends tore open like an exploding cigar in a vintage cartoon. Ursus americanus can be such a Richard!

The next few months were pure Ursus americanus hell. I am the absent-minded type and often forgot to put the gas grill securely away once it cooled down. The reward was always a disappearing gas grill. Sometimes it was found nearby, licked clean and looking as pristine as brand-new. Sometimes it was found licked clean and mildly battered. Occasionally it was found licked clean and battered nearly beyond further use. Once it was never found but was presumably licked clean. My absentmindedness single handedly caused a late season depletion of tabletop gas grills at the local big box mart.

Inadvertently putting a bag of trash in the bed of the pickup the evening before rather than the morning of trash day always resulted in the entire contents being chewed into miniscule slimy shreds then strewn all about my campground. Ursus americanus can be such a Richard!

It was only a matter of time before Ursus americanus and I reached a breaking point. That happened one unusually mild autumn day, a day so fine that instead of doing autumn things, a day at Lake Superior was in order.

I took a can of Leinie’s with me for the stroll down the beach. My daughter also happened to be there as well, picking agates. Unbeknownst to me, my lovely sprite granddaughter was there too and when she snuck up from behind and gave a firm Ursus americanus hug, the entire opened can of beer emptied into my lap. That was good for a laugh, we had a wonderful visit that day, then parted ways.

Upon return to the campsite the ale-soaked board shorts were spread out on the picnic table to dry and I settled in for an uncharacteristic catnap. A thump on the side of the camper stirred me. A few moments later there was the creaking and straining sound of wood fibers being strained to their limits and I bolted up in bed and found myself at eye level with Ursus americanus just outside the window. He was atop the picnic table, gnawing and licking at the beer-soaked board shorts.

I instinctively shouted and Ursus americanus, with barely a flex of a muscle leaped from the picnic table complete with a rather cocky midair Superman pose, board shorts clenched in teeth. I burst out the door after him, shouting like a lunatic. The board shorts were a cheap discount store knock off pair and not hardly worth chasing after a wild animal over. The bear sped away, the board shorts were eventually dropped, and I triumphantly recovered them, dripping with saliva. Apparently Ursus americanus likes Leinie’s about as much as I do, even if he must lick it from the crotch of a human’s clothing.

Positive gender identification under those circumstances and in that moment did not seem prudent. I presumed that the cub-less Ursus americanus would identify as male and therefore should be rightfully labeled as a Richard. But he could have just as well been she, mandating being labeled a Karen.

Friends and family all had suggestions on how to manage this unruly neighbor. The most popular idea was to simply shoot the beast, some suggested scare tactics ranging from flare guns to firecrackers, others thought the game warden could live trap this rogue and drop him off somewhere else to bother somebody else.

Truth is, Ursus americanus was just doing what he and she have done for thousands of years. They go to sleep in the winter, emerge in the spring, expend as little effort as possible to eat as much as possible, and hopefully survive and make a few little baby bears. I was the Richard that invaded their back yard and disrupted their routines and lives.

I began seeing less and less of Ursus americanus, to the point that any encounter or sighting became a rarity.

A few months ago, a guest and I where enjoying a meal when a sow and three cubs ambled by the cabin barely 15 feet beyond the open patio door. My guest momentarily locked eyes with the mama bear and I was both nervous and amused by the three bumbling and rollie-poly cubs as they tumbled off like drunken circus clowns. It was good to see my neighbors again. Perhaps they have forgiven and forgotten and no longer think of me as a Richard.