The Bear Ate My Truck

After four days of eating and enjoying ourselves, everyone left Tuesday morning to head back home including Tim because one of our cats was sick.  I stayed up to clean up, finish planting and eat lots of leftovers.  During the week, we usually put all the garbage in the back of the pick up to take to the dump.  However, apparently I didn't get to it fast enough because a very hungry man-eating bear started eating my truck.  I glanced out our window and there was a black bear trying to get at the bags of garbage in the back of the truck.  I freaked out and started shouting at him from the front window - that is why he is giving me this "don't bother me" look from the driveway.  Yelling didn't seem to help. I tried standing on the front porch and throwing various things at him but he just began to eat the handles on the camper shell.

I called my neighbors, Mel and Marni, who said they would drive over in their truck to be sure that I was okay.  They told me to just keep making a lot of noise and stay close to the house.  For lack of anything else, I started singing the soundtrack from Gypsy really loud from my front yard? I know, there are much more frightening soundtracks to sing - Hands On A Hardbody comes to mind but I know all the lyrics to Gypsy.   The bear didn't seem much impressed by the show tunes and continued to gnaw on the truck.  Marni and Mel pulled up the driveway and he suddenly ran away.

Marni got out of the truck with a whistle and for a moment I had a flashback to a 70's disco.  Mel and I emptied the truck of the garbage and I grabbed a hose to clean the pickup and wash away some of the odor.  They left, I locked all the doors, turned on all the outdoor lights and grabbed a couple pots and pans to make noise.  After 10 years of being here, we have never seen any animals - this freaked me out a little especially being by myself.  I went to bed and didn't sleep much.  The bear came back and you could hear him walking around outside sniffing for scraps.  I was just too tired to go bang on my Le Creuset to get rid of him and spent a sleepless night.  I thought about throwing him some of Jean's leftover Nutella paninis but they were too delicious to give up.  Go away, Bear!