You have to admire the bear out in British Columbia that broke into a car and guzzled 69 cans of pop.
That is an amazing amount of high-calorie liquid to take in during a single binge, even for a creature who obviously feels like indulging himself after his long winter’s nap. The critter apparently knew which tins had the good stuff – Yogi left the three diet pops untouched – or rather, unpunctured.
Granted, he did spill some of the high-octane drink. Orange pop on white leather seats… not pretty. Still, 69 cans is an impressive amount of pop – overconsumption at its finest.
Actually, the bear’s exploits may explain certain aspects of human activity in springtime. Take, for example, the people who behave themselves most of the year. No hits, no runs, no errors, no arrests. Then, with the first burst of warm, summery weather, they develop an overwhelming compulsion to hop in a car and guzzle vast quantities of high-calorie liquid, usually beer.
After decades of education campaigns, and ever-increasing penalties for operating a car while – or after – drinking beer, police reports show they still do it. That first long weekend of the summer, known in certain circles as May 2-4, will bring them out in droves.
Those of us who have been mystified about the urge certain people have to combine operating a motor vehicle with guzzling beer may now have a plausible explanation. They have obviously been hibernating all winter, ensconced in their man-caves with no activity other than napping and pressing the television remote, and crave a heavy hit of calories to get them up and moving, just like the bear.
Like Yogi, they have no “off” switch. They just keep drinking their caloric liquid of choice until it is gone, no matter if they wreck the car and make a huge mess in the process.
There is another major difference between Yogi and his human counterparts. Although Yogi wrecked the car – chewed up the leather seats, and spilled orange pop in the gear shift! – he did not actually drive the vehicle and endanger everyone in the vicinity. As long as other creatures, human and otherwise, left him alone to guzzle the pop and make a mess, they were safe.
Not so for those on the road with humans who share Yogi’s inclinations. The death toll from impaired driving continues to be unacceptably high.
Actually, there is a third substantial difference between Yogi and like-minded humans. Yogi’s survival depends on his instinctive urge to take in a lot of calories, fast, after he comes out of hibernation. He has no “off” switch for a good reason.
Survival of humans who feel obliged to demonstrate the same kind of behavior depends on them having an “off” switch and not taking in as much of their liquid of choice as possible.
The sooner they realize it, the safer everyone will be.
A local police officer once said that without alcohol, half of the work of her department would disappear.
While health officials express concern over abuse of illegal drugs, and rightly so, alcohol, especially in combination with gasoline, kills, maims and causes an untold amount of property damage.
The bottom line is, we are not bears. Some of us may indeed have a primitive instinct to empty that case of beer just because it is there, but we also have the ability to reason, to help compensate for the instinct.
If we choose to guzzle all the beer, we need to stay out of the car. And we need to be prepared to suffer the consequences to our brain and digestive system.
Reason would tell us that guzzling 69 tins of anything, no matter how delicious it is, and how empty one’s tummy is, would not be a good idea unless one weighed 600 pounds and was covered with fur.
Even then, it would be a safe bet that not all the liquid on the car seats was pop. Overconsumption of anything comes at a price, even for a bear.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter currently working for Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com.
