The stars were so bright driving home tonight that I could see them through my high-beams. For shiz. Granted, I was driving into my no-ambient-light-exists-here-because-it's-the-forest small town, so there was no real risk of the brilliance of the stars being suffocated by the ever-present neon glow of city lights. And hey, I have a revolutionary idea, SUBURBIA, which may also help you cut down on crime:
TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING LIGHTS.
I know that people used to turn on lights in their house to make it seem like someone was home in order to deter burglars, but it has become obvious that simply leaving the lights on assumes that today's criminal is about as evolved as those guys in Home Alone. Status update: expert breakers-and-enterers cannot be simply intimidated into not stealing your shit. No one decides to not break in somewhere because of the wattage of your overnight bulbs. You're wasting energy AND openly displaying the fact that there are no loss prevention employees present.
Consider turning off the lights and waiting it out with masks and red laser beams, then, should someone break in, simply aim the red laser at their chest/head and announce in a stern voice that you are ready to go Predator on their ass if they don't fucking drop the iPads.
Anyhoo.
As mentioned, Crazy Thing That Happened To Me Tonight #1: I live in the forest. I know it doesn't seem like I should be surprised to see a large black bear strolling up my road as I turned the corner tonight, but fuck if I wasn't. It actually took a moment for my eyes to register what I was seeing. I mean, I've seen bears before. I've lived in the boondocks almost my whole life, and you can't live in the boondocks without seeing a bear or two. They were always moving far too fast for inspection, though, and further away from my car. (I also saw a bear in the Sequoia National Park which was so docile it had people five feet from it taking pictures.)
Once my brain understood that the large pink pads on the bottom of the creature's feet, along with the gait and the SIZE of the fucking thing, meant I was following a BEAR up my road, my immediate shock gave way to curiosity, and, recognizing that I was safe in my car without threat to my person or property (for the most part), I didn't understand why I wasn't driving faster in order to get a better look at the big guy.
So I drove faster. The bear moved faster. The bear sort of started to run. It was like I was a hunter! RUN, BEAR!!!! Then the bear made a sharp right turn and grabbed hold of a tree and looked like it was about to climb it. Since I was going uphill -- and not very fast -- it wasn't hard to stop right next to the bear and get a good look at him while he was about four feet from my head lights. I thought two things: 1) Holy fuck I am about to see a bear climb a tree, which is COOL, and 2) My dog could be bear food the next time I leave him on my deck overnight.
The bear did not climb the tree. Instead he looked over his shoulder at me and -- I could be wrong about this -- appeared as though he was ready to pounce on a motherfucker, should that motherfucker (me) get the wrong idea and try anything stupid.
Don't worry, bear. You are a BEAR and you are SCARY. Also, I hope you aren't hungry and planning on visiting my very delectable puppy as he waits on the deck for me to let him in and give him snuggles.
I backed my car up to see if I could get a better position for my headlights on the bear, but when I pulled forward again the bear had gone Houdini on me and disappeared. At this point I realized I had misjudged the tenacity of bears in general, and that I have several low-hanging branches over my deck and it would be, like, the easiest thing in the WORLD for Mr. Bear to just swoop down and slice up my dog for dinner.
Shit.
You can imagine the math I did in my brain to try to figure out how fast I could drive -- compared to a bear that was possibly charging -- in order to make it the remaining 200 meters up the road to my house to save my puppy from becoming bear food. I also had a moment's panic when, getting out of my car, I realized I had no idea where the bear had gone and that I could end up as bear food, too, if I wasn't careful.
Clearly, everything turned out okay because I'm sitting here writing, and not mentioning the time a bear ate my dog. Whew! But it got me thinking about food supply/climate change, and wild animals that have been forced to come down into human territory (where they would rather not be) in order to survive and find a reliable food source.
Then a man friend said something to me about how I should lock my windows downstairs unless I wanted to come home to a bear in my living room. Not I! I locked that shit PRONTO.
Speaking of food supply, I just started reading this, which I am loving and you should, too:
This book has nothing to do with either of the two crazy
things that happened to me tonight.
Moving along, Crazy Thing #2: You might remember this post I wrote about spiders. Well, I'm happy to report that things mellowed out spider-wise after just a week or two of living in my house. Sure, there is the occasional scream-slash-jump-and-grab-a-shoe maneuver to be done, but I think that happens basically anywhere. But the other night I was on the phone and saw a very large spider-shaped object hanging out on the edge of where my carpeted loft meets the wall, and about three feet above eye level. When I weighed the likelihood that I could do any real damage to the spider without maiming myself in the process, I decided it would be best to tap into my inner Buddha and let the thing live.
Fast forward to the night I had my run-in with Yogi Bear: after dodging the Angel of Death (bear), I made myself some dinner. I was all settled in to watch The Bachelorette online when a large, hairy object caught my eye in the hallway. In fact, it's likely that I only looked up because I sensed the sentience of the thing looming over me and the distinct feeling that I was not alone.
I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that my spider friend had returned, beefed up on steroids and probably some of my dog's protein-rich food, because this thing was HUGE. Crushing it with a magazine or some other blunt object was out of the question as I was pretty sure I would hear bones crushing and would, therefore, never be able to touch the walls of my hallway again. Plus, it was up in the corner, which is not good for squishing spiders.
I decided I had to capture it. I thought momentarily about releasing it into the wild, and then remembered that it is a fucking SPIDER and not a baby seal.
WORTH SAVING:
PERHAPS NOT WORTH SAVING:
The only problem was that as soon as I grabbed a chair and a tall cup with which to capture the beast, I realized I would have to place the cup OVER the spider, which means MY HAND would have to get CLOSE to the spider. Even climbing up onto the chair sent me into convulsions. "This," I thought, "is what a man is good for."
I immediately hated myself for thinking that, as memories of past significant others killing spiders flashed through my mind, and I realized the only thing that separated them from me was a little extra skin and a few unfortunately-placed blood vessels between their legs. At which point I hunkered down, had some existential debates with myself over the nature of fear and gender roles, and decided I did not need a penis in my house in order to take care of this monstrosity on my ceiling. I slapped the cup over the spider, slid a graduate school prospectus over the top and thought long and hard about trying to photograph the thing before I said "fuck it" and flushed it down the toilet. I am not kidding: it swam so hard it almost made it out of the toilet bowl.
Me: 2
Mountains: 0
Just popping over to say I love your stories! Glad you won -- twice! :)
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