People from the North have no respect for the evilness of bears.
I'd never really thought about bears myself until I found out that we were moving into the middle of the woods. And at first I was just excited to be living alongside the inhabitants of our Great Canadian Wilderness. I'm the girl who
enthusiastically proclaimed: "Hey C! I think I almost stepped in bear poop!" during our first visit to the new place.
Then, slowly, the reality of life in the bush began to sink in. At first it was just a vague anxiety at the back of my mind.
Hmm, I'd think,
maybe I should ask C about bears. But, as the date of our move approaches, I can feel the fear growing and growing, slowly boiling up inside me and
transforming itself into absolute earth-shattering hysteria.
Plus, someone wrote this in response to my
post about living in the woods: "You're going to live around bears? That would make me nervous..."
Britt! (Just kidding - I was crazy long before that.)
Basically, the fear that used to be
Jeff Goldblum is now that
acid spewing monster he became in
The Fly. *Cough cough gawk
blawk*
Ahhhhh!
Mostly I blame C. No matter how much you love, respect and trust someone, if they respond to your bear-related questions with comments like, "Oh, as if you're worried about bears. The only bears around here are those silly little black ones. Where I come from, people throw sticks at them at the dump. Not me obviously, that's cruel. But I've heard about it," it is extremely hard to feel in any way comforted. As wonderful as it is to know that your husband is
way too cool to be even the slightest bit concerned about being mauled by a 300 pound predator, and that up north, people who might otherwise be abusing their puppies have decided to take out their rage on starving wildlife, it really doesn't do a lot to lesson one's terror.
The problem with men is that they don't understand the cathartic and comforting nature of fear. To them, fear is weakness; fear is something that must be sublimated into passive aggressive window closing requests and overuse of the word "silly". But, if I've learned anything from three years of children's programming, it's that courage is having the strength to overcome your fears, not the state of never being afraid. (Thank you, Franklin!) What C fails to realise is that showing a tiny little bit of hesitation, of
consideration, a mere
smidge less bravado, would make for a much more placated wife.
Think about it...You and your two small children (and let's face it, what could seem more tasty to a hungry omnivore...it's not like us humans don't eat baby cow.
Well, not me but...) are tromping around the woods. Suddenly you get the feeling that something is watching you, stalking you. Yes, it's the one black bear out of a million who has for some reason decided to "go rogue" as the expects say, and enjoy a nice meal of premium baby.
Suddenly, there is movement in the bush beside you. A lone figure emerges
triumphantly from the shadows. It can be either Obama or George W. Bush; who do you choose? I, of course, would pick George. Okay, whatever...forget about politics,
intelligence and all of those factors that might come into play; I want George because he is going to look at that thing, get terrified out of his boots (out of his boots...
teehee. Like how I keep everything so G rated around here?) and shoot that thing like fifty times in the face. (Oh, yeah, they can have guns...but not bear spray...that evens the score too much.) Barack just doesn't do it for me in this situation. Oh, yeah, everybody loves him, and I'm not insulting his manliness (just as I'm not insulting C's), but he's gonna be all like: "Now, hold on here, Mr. Bear. There are a lot of berries in this forest and I think we both know how unnecessary it is for you to be eating these people. Why don't we all sit down, share nice lunch of honey and deer carcass and discuss our problems together. I think you'll find that we have a lot more in common than one might expect." Then he'll give it that
"My eyes are boring into your soul and I am not impressed with what I have discovered" stare that he and C have in common. And then the bear will cry and clap and cheer. He might even go home and buy himself a
yes we can tee-shirt over the Internet, but he's still going to eat you...because he's a
freakin' bear! Go ahead and be diplomatic with good old Mahmoud and Kim Jong-il, but this is a bear...I want to be with someone who's terrified...terrified and armed.
Hey, and don't laugh at the diplomacy part. That's pretty close to the response I received when I mentioned my fears in front of the mutual friend we stayed with over the weekend, who, of course, happens to be a life-long childhood buddy of C's. So he's also a northerner. He has the same name as C, so we'll call him
CNUMBER2.
J:
So what do you do about bears up at your cabin? Have you ever seen one?CNUMBER2:
Well, you have to remember to keep your barbecue locked away because they like the smell of grease (The likelihood of me or my husband EVER remembering to do this is 0% of course). One time I left mine out and one came and knocked it over and toyed around with some stuff in my yard.J:
Ugh! Were you terrified?CNUMBER2:
No. There's nothing to be afraid of. We're the two largest predators in the forest so I think we have a mutual understanding and respect for one another.Great, I think to myself,
another Northern boy response.
Well then, maybe we can all work together in some kind of predatory hunting ring. The bears can help us by flushing out some tasty deer (wait I think they do use them for that somewhere) and we can shoot them to save our ursine friends the trouble of having to sharpen their claws. Then we can have a big banquet: "Hey, Winnie, can you pass the relish?"Men! They just don't understand that all I want is some level of
acknowledgement that they have considered the issues that frighten me and are taking proactive steps to address them.
It's just like when I was pregnant and generally terrified of everything I consumed...
Me:
Um, is this cooked enough?C:
Yeah. It's fine.Me:
Yeah, but it looks pink to me...do you see the pink? C:
It's fine.Me:
Okay, let's assume for a minute that it is fine. I just need to know if you see the pink.C:
It's fine. Me:
No, I'm not asking that anymore. Just tell me if you can see the pink part in the middle. Tell me so you see what I'm seeing and that you think it's okay based on what I'm seeing.C:
It's fine. Even if it was undercooked, you'd probably be fine. But it's not. Me:
I don't care if I would probably be fine! Probably is not okay and the fact that you just said that tells me that you obviously think that it's not fine and you just think it's okay to eat undercooked meat!C:
No, I'm just trying to let you know that it's okay, and it's not undercooked.Me:
Yes, but do you see the pink? Do you see it!!???C:
It's fine. Me:
You suck. C:
Ditto. Then my
contractions started and we had to go to the hospital and have a baby. Six months later he admitted that he had looked at my meat and that it was barbecue sauce that looked pink. He just didn't say that because he thought that by looking at it and acting concerned, he would make me feel worse.
*sigh*Anyway...
Since my husband refuses to give me any indication that he has a grip on reality, I stayed up all night researching bears on the Internet like an
overachieving fourth grade student. These are some of the things I discovered:
1. Unlike Grizzlies, black bears (the only kind in my area) will not usually attack humans to protect their young. Black bears are more afraid of humans so surprising them will most likely lead to them running away or climbing a tree to escape you (sounds comforting so far, right). However, this means that if you are attacked by a black bear it has most likely mistaken you for food and has been stalking you with the intention of dragging you into the woods as late night treat. Nice. C's response: "See, I told you. They're scared of humans."
2. Because black bear attacks are more often offensive, "playing dead", as one would with a brown bear, will only make an attack worse. The only thing you can do in a black bear attack is fight back ("with everything you've got" is the term used on these environmentalist sites) or it will just eat you. C's response: "I was always a good boxer."
3. Between 1900 and 2003 there were 52 deaths from black bear/human encounters.
C's response: "I told you it wasn't a big deal."
To which I respond: "I know it's a small number but
look at what they did with the people! A lot of them are children who were dragged into the woods! I'm scared!"
C's response: "It's just not going to happen."
That's C; always the optimist.
So here is my message to all bears:
I know you can read this because you have most likely stolen laptops from all those people you've killed. Clearly by this point you have also learned our language and are planning for the day when you will ultimately take over the planet and steal our beekeeping technology.
I'm talking to you! Look at me!
If you so much as come near me or my children...no wait, you can walk by us, as long as absolutely no eye contact is made (I'm not inhumane). I'll start again.
If you ever try to hurt me or any member of my family I will spray you in the face with my trusty bear spray and your eyes will sting for a whole few seconds! You remember that...because NO ONE likes stingy eyes! And if that's not enough and you do not relent and go climb up a tree or move to B.C. or something, I WILL BITE YOU!
Yeah, it might not sound like much, and you'll probably still eat me. But I will bite you right on your stupid bear snout and then you'll have this ridiculous human-induced scar for the rest of your life and you'll have to explain to all the other bears that you were bitten by some silly human. And the other bears will laugh at you and you'll never find a bear mate. Day after day, you'll sit alone in your den, regretting the time you messed with me and my family. And you'll die old and alone.
But you probably won't pay any attention to this warning, because you're a big tough boy bear and you're not afraid of anything, right?
You probably used to live up north.
How I, a person who spends every waking moment indoors, who, for the last few weeks has been far too busy packing to attend even the smallest public gathering, who's concern over germs attacking her offspring leads her to methodically clean everyone's hands as soon as they enter the house and lecture endlessly about not putting our hands in our mouths unless we have just cleaned them, managed to present myself as the optimal host to a bunch of flu germs, I'll never know. It just doesn't seem fair, does it?
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