Close Encounters of the Furred Kind

I was noodling in the nursery area of our yard yesterday morning, pulling weeds and sorting plants.  (Why the guys who unload the plants don't or can't keep species together is beyond me.)  A coworker stopped by to chat on her way to check out some rocks.  Then, the solid waste driver, who had just exchanged one of the roll-off dumpsters, yelled from his truck, "Look out for the bear over there!"

"Yeah, right," we were thinking, "He must be...  Holy crap!  There's a bear over there!"

(From Prisoners of the Sun by Herge)

It was a brown bear, approximately four feet long on all fours, and it was running right at us!

As we hustled back to the (presumed) safety of our office (a lot farther away than I remembered), coworker asked, "Do you have a cell phone?"  "No," I replied, "and even if I did, I wouldn't stop to take a picture!"

As she told the story (numerous times) to coworkers throughout the day, she said that the bear was as startled by us as we were of him, and he turned tail and ran the other way.  I couldn't tell you.  All I know is that, based on every TV show and movie I've ever seen, if you turn around to look, whatever is chasing you will catch up to you*.

After the first jolt (I did leap as high as Captain Haddock did, above), we stopped running and just walked purposefully.  My brain was asking, "Aren't you just supposed to play dead?" while another part replied, "Who cares?  There's a wild animal that could kill you!"

I really wanted to tell my friends about this via e-mail yesterday.  I could bearly restrain myself.  After all, how often do you get to tell people how you bearly lived to tell the tail?  I just had to grin and bear it.

* The only exception I know of is the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, who can not chase you as long as you are looking at them.