So A Bear Walks Into A Party...

And now, as previously alluded to, 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 in the house at all, 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 grabs my pack of cigarettes off the table, lights it and 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, how fine his new coat is coming in, 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 and hold out a pack of Camel Lights.

MAN but I hate when bears come to parties.