Last night, shortly before dark, I sat on my porch while my dog Gus played in the yard.
I heard my neighbor down the street, calling someone’s name over and over again. I assumed that her dog had gotten out and she was looking for him.
Suddenly her cries changed, she was no longer shouting a name.
She began walking towards me, aggressively, clearly agitated. Then, then, the shouting began.
“Get inside. GET INSIDE NOW.”
At first, I thought she was still talking to her dog, and that her concern had turned to annoyance after finding him reluctant to come back to her.
“RUN.”
She got closer and closer, marching towards me.
“SIR, SIR, SIR!”
Gus was growing agitated, growling slightly, sensing her fear and responding in kind.
“Sir, you have to get inside now. There is a bear out here. A full grown bear. I’ve called the police, they are on their way.”
I was shocked, absolutely shocked. My mom lives up the street from me, and had seen a bear some weeks before. She’d told me all about it, even shown me pictures.
So, no, the bear living in my neck of the woods did not surprise me. The fact that my neighbor, trudging up the street in her pajamas, was a bear expert, now that was truly astonishing.
I mean, how else could she have know the bear was fully grown?
Anyway, after this run in with my neighbor, the rest of my night was pretty normal, until about an hour later when I noticed lights in the woods behind my house.
Now, I’m a reasonable guy, I see lights in the woods in the middle of the night, and I think aliens and UFOs. Yet in this case, my totally reasonable assessment, was totally wrong.
It turns out, my neighbor actually had called the cops on a bear for being in the woods, and they felt obliged to go on a little nighttime hike in response.
All in all, unreal Wednesday.
Highkey Obsessed 