I knew he was there before Mom did. It was just after midnight. The house was dark, Mom was asleep, and somewhere outside, something very large was lurking.
Clunk….Scrrrrrape.
I lifted my head.
BEAR.
I launched off the bed and sounded the alarm. WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!!!! Mom woke up with the usual lack of enthusiasm for my heroism. “KULA. QUIET.” She does this every time, despite the fact that I have now successfully detected approximately one hundred percent of the bears before she has.
He is huge, he is black, he is a thief, he is my nemesis, and he is prying the lid off MY Magical Food Bin.
The Magical Food Bin
I have some thoughts about the Magical Food Bin. Mainly: why the heck does Mom keep putting food in it instead of giving the food to me?
She opens the refrigerator, takes perfectly good food out, prepares the food, eats some of the food, and then — this is the part I cannot adequately explain — places the remaining food into a small magical food bin. Then she carries it outside and dumps it in the larger magical food bin.
I have spent ten and a half years studying this behaviour and have yet to determine its purpose. Apparently the bear has also noticed. Frankly, this entire bear situation could have been avoided if she would just give all that food to ME.
Every night the bear comes back to investigate the Magical Food Bin. I respect this. The bear and I may disagree on several things, including whose neighbourhood this is and whether he should be allowed near my bin, but on this particular issue we are aligned. If someone occasionally placed an entire salmon head inside a bin, I would devote significant resources to understanding that bin too. Someone should eat the salmon.
Code B-E-A-R
Apparently there have been bears all over Squamish this year. I know because I have personally been monitoring approximately all of them. The bear usually arrives in our neighbourhood sometime after Mom has gone to sleep. This is why she has me. My ears detect danger. My nose identifies suspects. My bark alerts the entire block of any suspicious movements.
Something isn’t right. I let out a little Woof. Mom says “KULA SHHHHHHH.” I assume this is my radio call sign. “MOM, KULA SHHHH IS A GO! BOGEY DO YOU COPY?”
WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!!!!
This time when the bear arrived, Mom raced downstairs wearing her black cape because she likes to pretend she is a superhero too. She’s cute. Mom stood on the counter looking out the window. The bear stood at the food bin. I held my position and continued sounding the alarm. This bear is either extremely brave or hard of hearing. He does not understand he is messing with BADGIRLNO‘s bin — and she is a highly trained wilderness superhero.
Mom says I absolutely cannot go outside. This is offensive because I have considerable bear experience. I have previously conducted several successful forest operations in which I performed my high-speed aerial butt-chomp.
We Are Not Allowed to Say Bear Anymore
I know the word bear. If Mom says bear, I bark. If Grandma says bear on the phone, I bark. If someone on computer thingy says bear, I bark too, because frankly nobody else seems concerned enough.
Grandma came to visit and she and Mom started spelling it. “Did you see the B-E-A-R last night?” I know what they are talking about it. They forget I can read minds. They should probably find a new system.
I know the sounds. Clunk. My head comes up. Scrape. Ears forward. Rrrrrrrrattle-rattle-rattle one of the big green Magical Food Bins is moving somewhere outside. Not on MY WATCH.
WOOOF!! Maybe it is a bear! Maybe it isn’t. That is not the point. The point is that it could be. Mom will sometimes say, “Kula, it’s okay it’s just the neighbour.” But one time Mom was wrong. It was not neighbour, it was BEAR.
So now I listen for everything. A lid. A wheel. A bump. A suspicious vibration coming out of the darkness. Sometimes I think perhaps I missed it, so I give a WOOF anyway just to be cautious.
Mom should be grateful I woke her up seventeen times for nothing. Better that than miss one bear. I am excellent at my job.
Mom is Sometimes Too Nice
One night Mom climbed onto the kitchen counter and looked down at the bear through the window. The window was open a few inches. She said softly, “Go on, GET!” The bear did not appreciate this. Suddenly a gigantic paw went S-W-I-I-I-I-I-I-P-E right past the window. Mom saw the entire thing from approximately one salmon length away. She retreated to bed.
Earlier that day she was discussing whether she might like to “scratch his cute little round ears” as she watched him from afar playing with a neighbours bin. After the swipe, she has stopped discussing this. Personal growth can happen very quickly. I am proud of Mom, she has come a long way.
The Night of the Sleeper Assassin
A few nights later the bear returned. People chased him away. Twenty-five minutes later, he came back. Silly people do not know how it’s done. I watched them from the window. Their technique lacked speed, commitment and Labrador aerial butt-chomp. Amateur hour.
This time the bear knocked over OUR bin.
Mom’s energy shifted.
I have started to suspect Mom has not been completely honest with me about what she does for a living. She says she designs packaging. I have seen her sitting at the computer and for many years I believed her. But there is another Mom…
I do not see her very often. She stays hidden for months at a time. Sometimes longer. Regular Mom laughs, scratches my ears and seems like a fairly gentle creature.
Then, somebody does something bad. Usually when they might do something bad to me, or to one of Mom’s friends. And that is when the other Mom emerges. There is no warning. Her whole body goes still. Her eyes change. Her voice drops into serious frequency. At this point I usually move slightly behind her. I love Mom very much, but I am also a little afraid.
I first became suspicious about Mom’s Sleeper-assassin identity at the bike parking. Mom and I were standing together with some friends when a man came racing past us in his car. VERY FAST. Then he went around in a circle and came back toward us VERY FAST.
Mom watched him coming. I watched Mom. Something was happening. Mom stepped directly into the street. This is not something Regular Mom does…
Her arm went out. Her feet planted. Her eyes narrowed. The man was still coming. I could have warned him, but I did not.
“SLOW THE F$#% DOWN!!!”
I am almost certain a small amount of fire came out of Mom’s mouth. The mans car urched to a stop in front of Mom — Immediately. Smart man. The man looked at Mom. Mom looked at the man. I could smell that he peed his pants a little.
The night the bear came back, Mom got this same assassin look in her eyes. Mom was very tired. This was the eighteenth time Mom had been woken up this evening.
I looked at her. She paused. She remembered something. Fishing Bear Spray.
I watched from the bed. Assassin Mom is the only Mom I leave to handle things herself. I watched her throw on her black cape and disappear downstairs.
Then I heard the tiny click.
I knew that sound. Assassin Mom had pulled the pin.
Chili grenade: armed.
I remained upstairs. Even superheroes know when a mission has gone black ops.
I heard the door open with a WOOOOOSH! Then—PSSSSHHHHHHTTTTT!
Chili grenade: detonated.
There was approximately half a second of silence while the bear reconsidered every decision he had ever made. Then he RAN. He ran very fast. Not regular bear running. Emergency light speed bear running. The bears big bum disappeared around the corner at a speed that did not seem available to an animal shaped like that. I smelled the familiar scent of someone possibly peeing their pants. Assassin Mom leaves very little evidence.
The entire operation took approximately 1.8 seconds.
Mom slipped back through the door. Click. Door shut. Mission complete.
But then...something was wrong. My nose twitched. Mom returned to our bed. The bear had been removed. And then Mom’s nose twitched.
Assassin Mom had made one tiny tactical error. She had forgotten about the open windows. The grenade had a much larger blast radius than she anticipated. And we were inside it. The bear was spicy. The Magical Food Bin was spicy. The kitchen was spicy. The living room was spicy. Our bedroom upstairs also became rather piquant.
The next morning I smelled one of Mom’s shoes. This was an error. I sneezed. Licked my nose until I ran out of licks.
Mom spent the next morning washing the floor, the cupboards, the windows, the doors, the steps, our car, and then our neighbour’s car.
I watched the cleanup operation from a safe distance.
I have concluded that humans invent many complicated solutions to problems I can solve easily. Give Kula the food.
No food in bin, no bear. No bear, no midnight barking. No midnight barking, no Insomnia Mom. No Insomnia Mom, no chili grenade assassin disaster.
Breakfast happens normally.
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