So A Bear Walks into A Party...

Another week has gone by. For some of us, the passing of days has been a painful process akin to slogging through a boot-sucking marsh, while for others the days have slid by as if on ice.

If only we knew what the weekend held! Is this the weekend we finally clean that fridge out? Match up that pile of socks? Drink a bottle of cough syrup just to see what all the fuss is about?

Quickly, people, to the iPod! For my iPod, set on “shuffle” and played during my morning’s commute, holds the pseudo-answers to all my faux-problems.

Shhh. Let’s listen:

Ask Her for Adderall by The Hold Steady
L.O.V. by Fitz & The Tantrums
Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair by Arctic Monkeys
Get Up by Heiruspecs
Jungle Love by The Steve Miller Band
Better Way by Ben Harper
Walking in Rhythm by The Blackbyrds
Demolition Man by The Police
Kick Drum Heart by The Avett Brothers

What’s it all mean? Prescription drugs should take care of what ails you. Don’t sit down, get up. That jungle love? Gotta be a better way. Walking in rhythm after that demolition man? Follow your kick drum heart.

Sigh.

And now, as alluded to the other day, the story of Mary and the bear.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she says.

“Rahr?”

“Sorry,” Mary says. “It’s nothing personal. We just don’t allow bears in the living room.”

And it was true. Mary and Jon don't normally allow bears, but over there, hogging the stereo, there was no bout a doubt it, as my father likes to say. That guy was definitely a bear; and frankly, he’d pretty much worn out his welcome.

I mean, a whole hour’s worth of Zeppelin?

MAN. Just what year did this guy go to sleep, anyway?

“ROWR!” shouts the bear. “RRRRar ar arrr rawr.”

“Oh, I hear ya, buddy,” she says, “I fell off a bar stool once and they practically threw me into the parking lot.” She comes as close as she can to putting her arm around him, tries to steer him toward the door. “This is not that, so don’t get the wrong idea. I mean, hell, I don’t care how much you’ve had to drink, either, but you see that guy over there?”

Mary points across the party to Jon, who is busy drawing a diagram of the firing sequence for a 2004 Saturn on an eviscerated paper bag.

“Rahr?” the bear says cautiously.

“Welllll,” she says, bobbing her head and grimacing slightly, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Jon’s not down with people and animals drinking from the same cup, if ya know what I mean.”

“Rahr rahr-rahr,” the bear points out.

Mary holds up her hands. “The dog’s different,” she says. “T-Bone lives with us.”

“ROWR!”

“I am not!,” she shouts, her Irish up. “I got a wild side just like everyone else! But this is for your own good, buddy! Time to go!”

And with that, she reaches into her jacket, pulls out one of those plastic, bear-shaped honey dispensers.

“ROWR!” The bear rears up on his hind legs, opens his mouth and "ROWR"s loudly. The party stops, momentarily, all faces on the bear.

How was Mary to have known that the bears find those honey containers offensive?

“ROWR! RAAAHR AAR!” The bear heads toward the fridge, no doubt to snag yet another of the pale ales he’s been stealing from me all night.

“Mary?” Jon calls.

She waves him off, irritably. “I got this,” she says. “You just go back to drawing whatever…” she trails off as she heads into the kitchen.

“Br’er Bear, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” She lights a cigarette, blows the hit toward the bear. They hate that, you know. “You start heading toward the exit or I’ll be forced to put some cigarette-cherry shaped dents in that nice spring-time coat you’re workin’ on.”

The bear looks down at his belly, looks back up. “Rahr rahr-rahr rahr?”

“Sure,” Mary says. She turns to me. “You don’t care, do ya? If he takes one for the road?”

I shake my head wearily.

MAN but I hate when bears come to parties.