BEAR!!!

This is the bear that almost mauled and/or devoured me.

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. What actually happened was that I was visiting my mom’s cabin in Wisconsin. I was sitting on the end of the dock by the lake, reading a Dennis Lehane novel, when I heard a rustling in the bushes right next to the dock. I assumed it was my mom or my wife, so I didn’t think “Eeeek! There’s a sinister rustling in the bushes!” 

And then a bear walked out. It looked at me and stopped, as if to say “Whoa! Didn’t expect to see YOU there, buddy!” As it stood there, I had two thoughts:

1. The odds of this bear actually walking onto the dock were all but non-existent. Despite what you may have read in my novel I Have A Bad Feeling About This, available now from Sourcebooks, bears do not just charge at people. 

2. Still…there was a frickin’ bear thirty feet away.

I sort of wanted to take a picture of it, but there are times when it’s best to devote your full attention to the situation that is occurring in front of you, and I didn’t want my legacy to be that of the dumbass whose final action was to take a picture of a bear. So I just sat there, and after a few moments the bear went on his merry way.

Once the bear was a safe distance away, I hurried up to the cabin to make sure my wife and mom didn’t miss their chance at a bear sighting. Then a text from my mom came through, informing me that there was a bear outside and that I should stay on the dock until it left.

Anyway, my wife took the picture above from the safety of the cabin, and no parts of me got eaten by a bear, so all is well.