What to Do When Confronted by a Bear

I'm sure you guys know what a bear is.  Bears are massive, hairy, vicious beasts that will as soon tear you a new one as look at you, and start to slobber just contemplating your plump, meaty body.

Huh.  Weird.  I don't remember saving that to my desktop.

So, what do you do when confronted by these most dangerous of beasts?  Well, that depends.  What is the nature of the confrontation?

If, for instance, you are out for a picnic with your loving spouse and devoted children, and a fanged mountain of fur and malice lumbers up to devour everything that keeps you sane in this cruel world, your first instinct might be to get the fuck out of there.  That is a mistake.

First rule of Bearology:  First instincts are always mistakes.

In this case, running will merely tell the bear that you are the person most actively concerned with the preservation of your own life, and the bear will then proceed to ruin your shit.  Why?  Because bears want their prey to be full of terror and desperation, to better flavor the meat.

Second rule of Bearology:  Bears are total dicks.

So what do you do?  You follow your second instinct, which, if you are a rational human being, will be to soil and piss yourself in utter terror.  While bears do savor your fear and the effect it has on your tender flesh, they are not about to eat your poop.  I mean, would you eat cow poop?  I thought not.

Third rule of Bearology:  Bears are surprisingly hygienic.*

So there you go.  As long as you sit still and have no shame, you will live through this particular bear encounter.  You are officially equipped and certified to deal with instances of bear aggression.  What do you mean, "What about my family?"  That bear isn't gonna leave until it eats somebody.  I suggest you tell the least loved member of your family to run for it while you "hold it off", code for laugh hysterically, imagining Yakety Sax to accompany his or her doomed flight.

Now, what about times when the bear isn't the aggressive one?  What if you just like fucking with bears?**  I'm gonna be frank with you guys:  This is a bad idea.  Do not try this.  Remember that episode of Yogi Bear, when some campers put an extending boxing glove in a picnic basket and handed it over to the unsuspecting and grateful creature?***

It is a goddamn miracle that Park Ranger Smith and the vacationing visitors of Jellystone Park were not torn to pieces, some devoured, others left to rot, still others turned into grotesque puppets and used to put on shows about how noble and considerate bears are.

Surprisingly nice for a bear.  Smarter than average?  Up for debate.

So, if you somehow make the monumentally horrific mistake of intentionally pissing off a bear, consider yourself and those around you well and truly boned.  You would be lucky if you were only killed.  Worst case scenario?  The bear uses you, feet first, as a pen to write an epic about your extremely poor judgment, across a bare mountainside, in your flesh and blood.  While you're still alive.  I've seen it happen.

Then, of course, there are the situations where it's not quite clear what's going on.  At an office party, you tell a bawdy joke about the three bears and Goldilocks, only to discover, to your chagrin, that your audience is composed of three bears and a young blonde girl.  What now?

This is the picture the dictionary gives for "chagrin".

Your course of action should not differ in the least from what you would do if the bears were any other kind of person.  Just bite the bullet, admit your mistake, and apologize.  Hope they don't file a complaint with Human Resources.

You know what?  No.  You deserve that complaint and the sensitivity training it will bring.  I mean, what the fuck, man, is it 1920?  Bears are just as capable as any human, and always have been.  It's like you're stuck in some sort of bizarro world where it's still cool to bash on someone just because they happen to have fur and giant, clawed paws and happen to sleep all winter.  You shouldn't have told that joke in the first place, you specist bastard.

You know.  Hypothetically.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if bears could understand human speech, and talk back, even, they probably wouldn't rape and kill you.  Probably.  It's not like humans do that to each other.****

That about covers what you need to do in a confrontation with a bear, honestly.  If attacked, poop.  If attacker, pray.  If you're a specist asshole, knock it off, asshole.

I hope you all learned something from this article.  I know I did.  What did I learn?  I learned that, if I write an article at 3:00 am, I will be much more likely to talk at length about gore and excrement.

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* Note:  Running and soiling yourself at the same time will probably result in the bear killing you with a lobbed rock out of spite.

** Per the first picture of this article, don't ever utter this phrase in even the least ambiguous of settings.


*** To my knowledge, no such episode exists.  Yeah, I made it up.  Don't like it?  I refer you to my treatment of songbirds in my previous article.


**** You know, maybe this explains why Yogi went easy on those campers and Park Ranger Smith.  He could talk.  Hell, he even wore a hat, collar, and tie.*****


*****  What the fuck is that collar attached to, anyway?