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Another Day in the Woods

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Today’s post comes from Bart the Bear, a hairy beast who found a smart phone in the forest.

Hey!

I’m feeling a little bit logy today, but still there’s work to do. Not a lot of food available, unless somebody tossed a fruitcake out of a passing car. That happens some around this time of year. But the competition never rests. Raccoons, especially, are always looking for stuff to eat. So I’m going to get busy after I send you this text.

Because there are no holidays in the woods.

Just felt like I needed to say that. I’ve been hearing a lot about “the holidays” and a bunch of ads have been showing up on this phone I found, which is kind of funny because I don’t really need anything from Victoria’s Secret. I haven’t seen anything in their catalog that would be right for a bear. Not that I’m into wearing clothes – I’m not. And the Victoria’s Secret people don’t seem to be too enthusiastic about wearing clothes either. They don’t seem too enthusiastic about anything. The models all have these pained looks on their faces. I can only guess that their little clothes are too tight, or they are freezing.

Bart_dress

What can I say? It’s great to be able to grow some all-over hair!

So anyway, the ads suddenly stopped and I’m wondering if “the holidays” are over now. That would be great if it was true, because this thing keeps vibrating and chirping with incoming messages and Facebook posts and, of course, the ads. Whoever owned the phone before me never said “no” when they were asked if they want to receive special offers. Some of these phones need more attention than a newborn bear cub. Really annoying!

And yes, I said “these phones,” because I’ve got a bunch of them. I found out that a wild animal like me can get a smart phone whenever he wants one.

Here’s what you do – find some hikers or campers and you do a little crashing around in the brush about 50 yards away. First thing that happens when they notice you is get out their phones. While they’re holding the phones up in front of their faces, that’s when you charge. I run straight at them, growling and snarling and huffing. By the time I get within 25 feet they’ve turned to run. And 9 times out of 10 I find the phone sitting there in the leaves where they were standing – all charged up and ready to go, with a picture of a ferocious bear on the desktop. Nice!

Sometimes the tourists stop running and turn around when they see I’ve picked up their phone and am no longer interested in killing them. But so far, nobody has asked for their property back.

I guess having electronic toys is fun, but there’s still no gadget that’s as cool as being alive! Anyway, have a great after-holiday-time. Don’t rule out hibernation as a New Year’s Resolution!

Your pal,
Bart

What’s the most prized possession you’ve lost?

64 thoughts on “Another Day in the Woods”

  1. Happy Boxing Day, baboons.

    I have lost lots of things in my life, most of which I have forgotten about. Most recently a beautiful pair of hand knit mittens that Tuula, my Finish friend made for me last year. I’m still in the mode of thinking they’ll show up again, and hopefully they will; I’ll have to make a concerted effort to locate them today, I’d be heartsick if they really are gone. But the one loss that I still mourn is another hand knit item, a Danish fisherman’s hat. It was my all time favorite hat, knitted of the softest wool, and very light. It kept me warm without giving me hat hair. I even know where I lost it, I left it in a shopping cart at Sam’s Club about twelve years ago. Despite noticing it immediately and returning to the store, several times, it was never turned in. That hat was special to me because I had bought it while visiting my sister when she worked on the island of Samsø thirty-six years ago. Sigh!

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      1. Damned if I know, Jacque, it’s not a Danish tradition. All I know is what you can read about it in Wikipedia, and that it’s today.

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      2. I think it’s more of a British holiday – a day-after-Christmas, often when you would give the servants their presents and possibly some time off.

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      3. Boxing Day is a very sensible holiday that I always make a point of observing. I think it is only civilized to take the day after Christmas off from work to recoup your energy and clear away the chaos. I think we, as Baboons, should begin lobbying to make it a US national holiday.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Every year I lose several pair of ear muffs. I love ear muffs but they do not come equipped with idiot strings and off they go into the universe. These, however, are not something I value. That lost prize goes to my grandmother’s antique watch which the very disturbed daughter of a former friend stole from me. My heart still aches at that one.

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  3. Good morning. It is hard to avoid loosing garden tools such as small cultivating tools and trowels. Pocket knives are easy to loose and usually can be found once I notice they are missing.

    I was accidentally responsible for the loss of a polar tech jacket. When looking in my closet, I discovered I had two very similar jackets and one of them was not mine. I asked people I knew if they were missing one of these jackets and no one said they had lost one.

    On my first canoe trip in the boundary waters I lost a special knife. That was in some ways the most prized possession that got away from me. It was a very nicely designed knife made by the Marble Company for camping and other outdoor activities. It slipped out of my hand and fell into the water while I was in a canoe going across a lake. I thought about diving into the water to try to find it and decided not to do that. You couldn’t see the bottom of the lake and I very much doubted there was any chance of finding the knife in those dark waters. The knife was one I had purchased for use on that trip that had a unique design different from the usual sheath knife sold for outdoor use.

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  4. I am the absent minded professor and I used to lose stuff all the time. Gloves by the dozen good pens forgotten hats and coats left my shoes a couple times (July ok but January?) my kids used to get those dollar stretch gloves 20 pairs at a time. Then I married this wife. She will backtrack like an Indian scout working for Sherlock holms mittens last for years. We found out if they get lost the world stops until they reappear. Different rules once the new sheriff showed up. My two older kids acclimated my younger ones thought this is the way life is supposed to be. Most recent angst filled moments fingernail file and target 10 dollar gift card … Sheesh.
    Had a painting I left in the trunk of a cab I feel bad about. But stuff…. It gets misplaced broken taken by children never to be seen again . I bet I’ll think of stuff as the day goes on

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    1. tim, I know someone who is the similar to your wife regarding the need to find lost things. We have spent a lot of time looking for many things that were misplaced or lost. I hate to lose things, but, if it was up to me, I would not spend an excessive amount of time looking for a lost item.

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  5. My favorite hammer that traveled with me since college somehow got lost once we got to this house. I strongly suspect it is somewhere still on the property and was perhaps used for a non-hammer purpose by Someone-Who-Is-Not-Me (I have found other things like my locking pliers out in the garden shed when they have been used as a weed wrench – Husband got a firm talking to about proper use of my tools after that). I loved that hammer. It wasn’t fancy, but it was a good 16 ouncer with a rubber handle that was good for the occasional use as a rubber mallet when you needed to tap something and didn’t want to go back to look for the actual rubber mallet. It was balanced nicely, fit well in my hand, and it had built many many sets for me. We have another, harder-to-lose-bright-orange-fiberglass, hammer, but it’s not the same. It may have the same function, but not the same wear and memories.

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    2. I agree, Anna, favorite tools are the most valuable and precious items in the house. I’ve been known to spend hours looking for particular knitting needles, or my short gardening shovel, or a favorite fountain pen. If you ever find your hammer, maybe you could wrap the handle with dayglo tape or paint it a bright color. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve “lost” something only to find it right there under my nose because of its plain unassuming appearance. The plain unassuming items like hammers — or sewing scissors!!! — are most likely candidates. I tried training my kids years ago NEVER to take my sewing scissors to cut paper, cardboard, wire, dog hair, etc., all to no avail. Finally I just bought lots of scissors and put them in every room in the house. In our house we don’t own guns, but if it had occurred to me I could have hidden my sewing scissors under my mattress. Isn’t that where people put things so that no one else can presumably find them?

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    4. Anna, I think that everyone should know that tools should be put back where they can be found after they are used. I am a little slow to put away my own tools, but at least I try to leave them some place where I will see them so that I can eventually put them back where they are usually stored. I know a person who likes to borrow tools and doesn’t return them. I have stopped lending tools to him.

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  6. I lost my wedding ring less than 2 years into our marriage — got my hand stuck in one of those “slit” mail slots at work, trying to stuff too many letters into the skinny opening. My knuckles swelled up and I stood there for almost an hour till the swelling went down. Later in the day I noticed the ring was missing, scraped off in the struggle 🙂 Never did find it in the giant canvas mail bin in the basement. It was a beautiful ring handcrafted for me by my college art instructor incorporating the opal from my mother’s engagement ring. That was heartbreaking and I still feel guilty for my carelessness.

    I’ve lost half a dozen more wedding rings over the years — in the garden, walking along and swinging my arms, swimming, who knows where. Nowadays I find my replacement rings at estate sales, simple smooth bands. I know I could simply forego wearing a wedding ring. I could have kept my own surname, too. Come to think of it, I miss my name more than my wedding ring. But those were “the olden days” as my kids like to say and old habits die hard.

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    1. i have lost 2 wedding rings,one when someone who lives there after i moved out made it disappear but the chances i would have enjoyed it again were nill the second was a great memory. i was in yellowstone with the family and they were sleeping at sun up. what were they thinking. we were within range of the hot pots near the main entrance so i went up ther efor a morning dip in the thermal water where there is a constant isothremal leak into the river. the locals or more likely smoe vacationing yahoos place rocks in lace to mix the correct amount of hot water dripping in from the shore and the cold melt off of the yellowstone river to make a wonderful choice of locations in the riverbed to choose from water flow temp view etc.. it is easly a place wher i consider to be in my top 10 favorite places in the world. good people good feelings good times good memories … well on this morning i had it all to my self. i susspect the people messing with the rcks gave up and went home s when i got there at 6 am the water looked inviting and as i got in and began wading toward the suspected wombs i so looked forward to wrapping mtself in in the moments to come. well it was all messed up. the water was either to hot or too cold. the cold water was rushing through and the hot water was not be channeled over to mix the perfect temperature for me to enjoy so i kept moving and found a number of other places where the water again was not correct. normally the predocessors leave little places to sit and places wher the ater will massage you back and legs whole you watch the sun move slowly through the outdoor picture card you are placed in the midst of. this day nothing so i kept moving. i hit a spot where the water was moving fairly quickly and i moved across that spot to a closer to shore backwater eddy i hoped would be the right spot.i was barefoot and the sharp rocks below offer a challange as wella s the water current so when i hit a spot wher the water was scalding hot i moved quickly to find another toe hold but hwas carefula s the scaldinging hot spot took a larger profile than i had expected so i did a little river dance as the foot looked for safe haven from both thermal and impaling attackers. you can with a little effort visualize my arms flailing abov ethe water and the oooohh look on my face as i was trying to sense my way through the obstacle course on a solo mission at the crack of dawn with no one to hear my x rated exclamations. as my arms flailed and my feet searched i had just the right amount of wet hand, arm spinning velocity and attention to something else to have my ring come flying off my hand and go sailing into the thermal limbo where i saw its entry point , did a menatal calculation as to the water current projectile entry and spped of all the above to determine where i should begin looking for the ring after i did get my footing which occured momentarily and i was left to do my morning wake up a little differently than i had anticipated.the water was ok in the area where i deduced the ring would be temperature wise but the current flow was a bitch. i am trying to get to the bottom in a waist deep area where head dunking is required to reach the bottom as the current is pulling you through the rock and the area it is pulling you through to is too damned hot. the first effort was no fun the second was aggravating the 3rd 4th and 5th were bad efforts at human recalculation to do it better. the last 10 or 15 efforts were just more of the same but with a more and more exhausted ragdoll doing the reach and be swept effort. i tried to re channel the water but it was too damned swift and after an hour of uninterrupted failure i gave it up and went home to a cabin full of people with smiles on their faces ready to have a dream vacation day here in yellowstone with the sun shining and the bears and moose and buffalo awaiting our discovery.off we went and my ring is there today to be discoverd by another river lover on another day in another part of the riverbed. i love yellowstone and now i look over to that spot when i hit the hot pots i add that to me list of recollections to draw from. not the best or the worst but i do recall the sensation of scalding and know i dont want to dip my toe in old faithful

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      2. That reminds me of the scene from Harold and Maude where Maude tosses the ring Harold has just given her into a reservoir of water. That way I’ll always know where it is, she explains to the surprised Harold. Likewise, your ring isn’t lost, tim, you left it in the one of your favorite places in the world.

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      3. tim, such a funny image of you “river dancing” 🙂 I’ve had to pass on hot springs my whole life because the sulfer smell made me gag. A child with a sensitive nose 😦 My parents would always say, “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

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  7. After Robin’s heartbreaking post, I have to mention again the bitter loss of my possum rug. But I once lost something with more conventional value.

    Ice fishermen use our cabin as a way to access a special fishing spot in Bark Bay when Superior freezes up. We used to have a pair of rickety ladders that let people climb up and down the cliff. One day a young man came up those ladders while carrying on his back a large amount of fishing gear and a 60-pound black Labrador. The next year we decided, as a kindness to ice anglers, to build a set of stairs to let people go up and down the cliff easily and in safety.

    We’ve enjoyed those stairs for years since then, as have some baboons now, but we failed to anticipate one thing. The traffic of people through our property has led to some thefts. We lost a splitting maul and a long metal ladder. Far worse, we lost our canoe, a 17-foot Grumman canoe that we bought each other to celebrate our first year of marriage. I have so many fond memories of trips with that canoe. I could pick it out of a collection of thousands of 17-foot Grummans, for I know it intimately.

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    1. I had to laugh picturing someone with a dog hanging off their back climbing a cliff 🙂 Had you left the cliff ladder in place, your canoe and metal ladder would probably still be safe in your yard. Kinda unwieldy to carry on one’s back while climbing a cliff. Still, someone creative enough to carry a 60-pound Labrador up a cliff ladder could undoubtedly have found a way to maneuver your canoe up or down with no problem.

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  8. When I was about 4, I left my security blanket on a guard rail on a highway on the North Shore. My parents and I were vacationing there and got out of the car to look at some view or another. I didn’t remember it until we were too far down the road to go back and fetch it. My mom says I didn’t make much of a fuss about it. I guess I was ready to give it up.

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      1. Oh, no, it was just the first of many things I have lost. When I was working long distance on my dissertation, I had checked out several books from the University of Manitoba library and found to my horror that I couldn’t find them when it was time to take them back. I contacted the library to see how much I owed for the books, and I was informed that some angel here in my North Dakota town had found them on the sidewalk near the hospital where I worked at the time, and had mailed them to the library. I think that I put them on top of the car while I unlocked the car door, and forgot to put them in the car and drove off, depostiting them on the sidewalk. I have also lost soup spoons, and now I am running low on salad forks.

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  9. If you know where you left it, is it still lost? When I was in China in 2001, I had lugged a heavy red jacket all over China, and had only worn it once while hiking the Great Wall; it was the only time it was cold enough that I needed it. By the time we made the final leg of the journey from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by bus, we had too many packages that didn’t fit in our suitcases, and, of course, the baby, to keep track of. To make matters worse, I had acquired an upper respiratory infection so severe that I could hardly breathe, and by the time we checked into our hotel in Hong Kong that night, I was a wreck. The next morning, on the bus to the airport I realized that I had left my red jacket in the closet at the hotel, but it was too late to turn back. In the pocket of the jacket was a disposable camera with all the pictures I took at the Great Wall.

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      1. No, Steve, the baby wasn’t mine. I had gone to China with a friend of mine to pick up a little girl she had adopted. I’m her Godmother.

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  10. Liam update (I think I have standing permission to go OT with these reports). Molly was cleaning the toilet three days ago when Liam rushed up to her to ask, “Mama, if I am being good RIGHT NOW can you tell Santa?” Molly said she could. Liam said, “Well, I’m being good RIGHT NOW. Do you need help cleaning the toilet? I will help you!”

    This was a puzzle to Molly. A bit later she happened to go in the living room. Toys were strewn about. Sofa cushions were tossed all over. The dog was cowering in the corner. Suddenly it all made sense. Liam had been on a tear, doing all the things he has been are naughty, including harassing the dog. Suddenly it occurred to him that Christmas was two days away, so he raced to the bathroom to try to get Molly to report to Santa that he at least was being good RIGHT NOW! This somehow reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.

    Kathe, my erstwife, told me last night that Liam hasn’t changed much since she saw him in June, but that his vocabulary has exploded. He astonishes her now with his verbal abilities.

    In a store, Molly and Liam went one way to do some shopping (Liam sitting in the cart) and Kathe went another way with her cart. They later met up, coming at each other in an empty aisle. Liam flashed a big grin and sang out to Kathe, “Hey there, young lady! What in the world do you think you are doing?” I could be wrong, but I don’t think two-year-olds talk that way.

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    1. Steve, do you remember the show Kids Say the Darndest Things with Arty Linkletter. The kids on that show were always coming up with something unusual to say. I think the kids on that show were a little older than Liam. I guess he is coming up with some of the darndest things to say at a very young age.

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  11. Morning.

    I would like to point out I have never lost a child I didn’t know I had…

    I did lose a favorite 8″ cresent wrench in a Sesame Street case once upon a time. Was working one of their shows, packing up after the performance and gave my wrench to one of their crew to loosen something– BUT I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE– and he laid the wrench down for a sec and I got called away and forgot about the wrench and never saw it again. If you wonder why Elmo is so happy it’s because he’s got my wrench.

    This summer I lost a favorite tape measure. Used it on a job and knew it was either in the truck or in my car, but I couldn’t find it. Then about a week ago, was digging through a tool bag in the car and THERE IT WAS! I was so pleased to find it again.
    And for Christmas I just got a new tool belt, so part of my job today will be moving the tools from the old tool belt to the new one and getting things adjusted ‘just so’.

    I’m also missing a book on DMX control. I know I put it somewhere safe… just haven’t remembered where I put it.
    Speaking of books, if you don’t have the ‘Macwhyte’ book on wire rope cable you don’t know what you’re missing…

    Got to work today and while the building is open and active, heat is off in the theater and alarms were still set. I’m thinking I should just go home again.

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  12. I have lost many a thing in my life but right now cannot think of anyone of them. I assume this means I am just as well off without them, if not better. I would like to lose this pain, but small chance of that I think.

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  13. Dale–I am glad you cleared up how Bart keeps getting battery charge for the phone. I’ve been puzzled how he does it. Love the contrast between fuzzy Bert and plastoid, sleek, undraped female flesh. (Not that I clicked on the link.)

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  14. Naturally, I can’t think of a precious lost item but I just got caught up on Trail doings and wanted to say Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day from western Massachusetts (at my sister’s). We haven’t celebrated Christmas yet because #1son and DIL don’t get here until today. So tonight we’ll put things in stockings and under the tree for our celebration tomorrow. We did have Christmas dinner at my brother’s and ate an insane amount. Lasagne, chili, breakfast strata and beef wellington are coming up in the next couple of days and I can’t imagine eating any/all of it. I’m sure we’ll find a way.

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  15. Bart, hibernation sounds really, really good today 🙂 I’m sitting here chuckling about everyone’s tool related losses — we primates sure do love and depend on our tools and toys, don’t we?

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  18. Greetings! Losing our house to foreclosure was painful and sad, but the one thing I think about and wish I had are my high school yearbooks. Odd, but true. They were well done yearbooks and it was a very special high school with good memories. There were even a couple good pictures of me slamming a volleyball serve and jumping hurdles. Plus the fun shots of me playing Snoopy and other characters in plays.

    After Jim and I got married, we moved so often they got lost or damaged in a flood I think.

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    1. Maybe someone from the school could scan the pages for you. Then you’d at least have the pictures. The autographs couldn’t be duplicated, though.

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  19. I lost a backpack to a thief once about 35 years ago. The backpack itself had been a gift, so I was sad about that. It had a favorite blouse in it – a blouse I wore in my high school yearbook picture my senior year. Nothing in it that would have been of any interest to a thief, which made it all the more frustrating – he probably stuffed it into a dumpster somewhere upon discovering I had no cash or valuables in it.

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