The first clue that something might be amiss inside my friend’s lake house came in the form of a large pile of bear crap on the stone steps leading down to the front door. I’ve had some experience with bear crap over the years, (feces from every species, in fact,) and immediately recognized this particular pile of scat as coming from a member of the Ursidae family. I could also tell it was a fairly recent deposit, which argued against the wisdom of an immediate clean up. In my experience, when the crap is moist and fresh, it’s harder to scoop up, especially from an uneven, rocky surface.
“I’ll let sit for a day or two,” I thought, “and pick it up after it has a chance to harden.”
Stepping over the bear dung, I walked briskly to the front door, eager to dump an armload of groceries onto the kitchen counter and tend to my own toilet related issues. There had been no pit stops on the four-hour drive from 
San Francisco, and the large thermos of hot coffee that had kept me alert during the journey was about to make its long-overdue exit, with or without my permission. I did pause, however, when I noticed that the front door of the lake house was ajar. A second clue that something was amiss inside.
I should stress that Jim is a very meticulous man. The kind of man who would never leave his cabin unlocked when he wasn’t there. Never. And I knew for a fact that Jim had left yesterday, because he had called me the night before from Arizona and invited me up.
“Why don’t you take a few days off,” he said. “The cabin is free, and frankly, you look a little frazzled. The mountain air will do you good.”
He was right. I always felt better after some time in the mountains, hiking through the backcountry, and watching the sun set over the lake. The only problem was, I could never stay more than a few days. There’s no internet or cell phone service up here, and while it’s great to unplug, I do have a business to run. However, at this particular moment, I wasn’t worried about the internet, or my business, or my distended bladder. I was only worried about why the front door was ajar.
I walked into the entryway and looked around, listening for signs of life.
“Hello? Anybody home?”
No one responded, but I did spy another clue that something might be amiss – a box of Ritz crackers, torn open and strewn about the entryway. Again, very unusual. There’s simply no way that Jim would ever leave his cabin unlocked, or uncleaned.
The final clue presented itself when I entered the kitchen, where a bomb appeared to have been detonated. Most of the cabinets had been opened, and most of the drawers yanked out. A large Tupperware container marked “Sugar” lay on the floor. It was empty. An identical container marked “Brown Sugar” lay beside it, also empty. The refrigerator and freezer were both open and ransacked. Empty containers of “Keto Friendly Ice Cream” were scattered everywhere, and the wooden floor was sticky with the stuff, along with a bouillabaisse of syrup, soda, catsup, steak sauce, horseradish, and margarita mix, along with a thick coating of white powder, presumably from the shredded box of Bisquick that lay at my feet. I then noticed several large pawprints in the Bisquick, along with multiple strands of black hair.
Like a true detective, I carefully considered all of these clues and quickly deduced that a bear had walked through the open front door, gorged himself in the kitchen, and then left the way he came, pausing briefly to crap on his way out – a classic display of carnivoran territoriality. But then I noticed something else. The window on the far side of the kitchen had been pried open. And below the window, inside the kitchen, a mangled screen lay on the floor.
Interesting.
Obviously, the bear had not walked in through the open front door. He had clearly come in through the kitchen window. The question was, did he leave the same way? Maybe, but if he did, why was there a big pile of bear crap just outside the front door? Are we to believe this bear walked up to the front of the lake house, took a dump right in front of an open front door, and then walked all the way around to other side to break in through a window? Why would he do that? Likewise, if he had both entered and exited through the kitchen window, would he really walk all the way around the cabin, (a large, two-story structure) for the express purpose of taking a dump by the front door?
No, I don’t think so. From the evidence at hand, I think the bear broke in through the kitchen window, gorged itself, ransacked the place, and then walked brazenly through the cabin while snacking on a box of Ritz crackers, which he left in the entryway. Then, I think he let himself out the front door, took a crap on Jim’s walkway, and headed back into the forest.
This of course, begs the obvious question – was the front door locked or unlocked when the bear took his leave? This is the question that Jim – a meticulous sort of man, as I may have mentioned – is no doubt pondering tonight. Because, if a bear is capable of unlocking a dead-bolted door, then that will be precisely how this day will be remembered. Otherwise, it will be remembered as they day Jim left his cabin unlocked.
Personally, I think Jim locked the door, just the way he’s been locking it for the last forty years. Bears are capable of many amazing feats, including the ability to unlock doors, and the Internet is filled with video proof. But the question is still open – did this particular bear merely push the latch on the inside of an unlocked door with one of his enormous paws, or did he deactivate the deadbolt in order to let himself out?
It was in the midst of this pondering, that Freddy ran to the top of the stone stairway that led down to the first floor, and began barking into the darkness below, forcing me to pose another question. The most obvious question of them all, really.
Was the bear still inside the cabin?
The next few minutes were pretty exciting. Armed with an andiron but somewhat hobbled by my distended bladder, I conducted a room-by-room search, hoping to NOT find a strung-out black bear hopped up on several pounds of processed sugar and Keto Friendly Ice Cream. I was already on the verge of peeing my pants, and probably would have had I actually encountered such a beast. But, as anyone who has ever been in a similar situation will tell you, it doesn’t matter how badly you need a toilet – you simply can’t pee if you think there might be a bear hiding in the next room.
Happily, after a thorough search, I determined the cabin was bear-free. Only then, did I find a toilet and rid myself of all that coffee. Then, I did something I’ve never done before at Jim’s cabin – I successfully logged onto the Internet. A feat made possible by an invention called Star Link, dreamed up by Elon Musk. The very same invention that Jim had recently installed on his deck, just a few feet from the broken window through which the bear had entered.
Once online, I emailed Jim about the incident, along with the attached photos. He quickly arranged for some local reinforcements to assist with the cleanup, and now, just a few hours later, I’m sitting here on the deck of his freshly scrubbed lake house high in the Sierra Nevada’s, completely isolated from the world. But not so isolated that I can’t access some music from Spotify, play a little Wordle, and listen in as Donald Trump accepts the nomination of his party, while sharing the true story of a bear in the kitchen with six million of my closest friends.
A true story made possible by Elon Musk.
Is this a great country or what?