Crazy visits the Free Clinic

Okay, so I know this doesn’t really fit most people’s idea of travel but it was all the way across town. Plus once I entered the parking lot it felt very much like I was a foreigner who did not speak the language or understand the customs.




First let me explain a couple of things. (Don’t you just hate it when you ask an author what their story is about and they go off on this long set up before ever telling you the basic concept of their story? I know, I do too BUT this is really important for your understanding of the story, so therefore it is totally different.)

If you’ve ever read my travel blog (and why wouldn’t you, it is very… insightful? helpful? delusional? Well it’s something anyway and you should browse through it sometime. ) then you have probably realized that I am poor. I work fulltime but have two addictions that keep me broke most of the time.

Are you wondering? Crack? Meth? Coke?

Nope.

The first addiction is traveling. Okay probably not a big surprise if you’ve read my travel blog and hey…okay, I won’t repeat myself (much). See two paragraphs up if you have any questions.

The second is books. If the library is closed for a long weekend and I haven’t had the foresight to stock up, I will choose a book over food. If you’ve seen me in person you know this is a huge (no pun intended this time) sacrifice for me.

So anyway, until recently, I NEVER called in sick to work. There were a couple of times when my manager sent me home. Once when I couldn’t stop coughing and sneezing. He was worried about catching something from me even though I always cover my mouth and nose just like my momma taught me.

The second time he said my high fever was causing some delirious rambling. I really don’t know how he knew this was from a fever and not the usual conversations I have with myself but I did have a high fever at the time and I felt like death warmed over so I went home.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important fact. I don’t have and have never had health insurance. After several horrendously expensive ER visits that resulted in mind-bogglingly expensive hospital stays, I still didn’t know what was wrong with me. I mean physically wrong with me. I was desperate for answers so I went some place I’d only visited once before many years ago when I thought I was dying.



The Free Clinic.

Free is a relative term. You pay the price of pride and lose the notion that you are any further than a couple of missed paychecks from the woman living in a broken down car.

I felt three pairs of eyes glued on me as I pulled my van into the parking lot. There were four people there on the steps but the fourth guy was too busy conversing with the voices in his head to pay any attention to me.


I debated with myself about whether or not I should describe the appearance of the people on the steps. On the one hand some people would find it humorous but on the other hand it seems a little like kicking someone after somebody else knocked them down. Plus I could look just like them if I miss too much more work so I’ll stick with describing their actions and words.

“Do you work here?” the man in his mid-to-late 30s asked me before I’d gotten 5 steps from my van. He was standing on the sidewalk directly in front of the other people who were seated.

I was a little surprised that he thought I could be an employee or volunteer in my 4 year old Wal-mart clearance sale jeans and old $5 t-shirt. I did have a vehicle though and since it was the only one in the lot, I guess it was more than the others had.

“No.”

“Then you’re number 5. Got that, number 5.”

“Okay.”

“I’m number 2 and this guy here,” he indicated the elderly man talking quietly to himself, “he’s number 1. He was already here when I got here an hour ago. She came about half an hour ago so she’s 3.”

3 was a restless woman in her mid-20s. She was seated on the concrete steps with the men. 4

“This guy came right after her so he’s number 4.”

I’d already figured that out all by myself before 2 told me. 4 was a quiet guy about 3’s age.

2 pinned me with an intense look. “I’ve been here too many times when people show up right before they unlock the doors and crowded in and grab numbers so that the people who got here first didn’t even get a number. Nobody’s gonna do that today. You take the number that goes with when you got here.”

I gave 3 and 4 what I hoped they’d take as a friendly nod and acknowledgement of their status as number 3 and 4.

“Sounds fair to me,” I said as I went over and sat on a concrete bench off to the side of the steps. This earned me a suspicious look from 2. I was tempted to explain that I’d picked the bench not because I was avoiding them but because I doubted I could get myself up off those low, cold steps in 30 minutes when the clinic opened.

I resisted the urge and instead concentrated on drawing in a deep breath even though my chest had suddenly tightened for no apparent reason and breathing was painful. I felt my heart pause its beating for a moment before stuttering back to its regular rhythm. The nauseous feeling and sweating quickly followed and the pain in my chest increased severely. For the next 10 minutes or so I was too busy chanting (silently) to myself, ‘It’s not a heart attack, it’s not a heart attack’ to follow the conversations going on around me.

A woman about my age arrived and sat down on the bench beside me. 2, the number nazi, informed her she was 6 and just encase she thought about line jumping; he gave her the same speech he’d given me.

This process was repeated a few more times as others arrived.

The pain in my chest began to ease up and I started listening to the conversations going on around me. 3 was griping to 2 and 4 about her ex-husband stealing her daughter just because of she’d been arrested for prostitution.

2 walked over to stand in front of me. I looked up and he smiled.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be, I hope.”

“You aren’t going to keel over or anything, are you?”

My mood suddenly lightened. “If I do,” I said quietly and cut my eyes over at the woman beside me then back at him “Are you going to let 6 have my number?” I held my serious look for a moment before I smiled.

“No way, you’ll be 5 even if I have to carry you up the stairs myself.”

I chuckled at the notion of this slim man carrying me up the stairs like a bad version of Rhett and Scarlet.

He started telling me about himself. He’d recently immigrated to Springfield from Arkansas in search of a better life. His face shone with pride when he told me he had a job cooking at the Missouri hotel. He went on to explain how he was going to get a business loan so he could open his own restaurant someday soon. He was really looking forward to a time when he could cook what he wanted to cook.

I didn’t mention the fact that most restaurants go out of business in less than a year. Who was I to rain on his parade? He might be able to get a loan, he might be able to run a restaurant and get enough customers to survive.

He went off on a tangent about how good the biscuits and gravy had tasted that morning. He was regretting that he hadn’t been able to get a second helping because he wanted to make sure he got seen at the clinic today. If he could get back before 10 they’d still be serving breakfast and he could get some more.

From there we branched off into other subjects and I found myself sharing some laughs with him.

My chest pain was just a dull ache now. 2 got serious again when a woman from inside approached the door. The waiting people surged forward but he was agile and leap up to get right in front of the door.

When it was unlocked, he reminded everyone of the system and he didn’t let anyone past him until 1 was inside. I took my time getting in there so I missed the woman telling everyone that they would only be able to see 5 people today.

2 came over and handed me my number. 3 started asking the lady questions but she told her to hang on. She didn’t want to have to keep repeating herself so we were all supposed to shut up and listen to her first. Only after she was done could we ask questions.

She explained the process in a bored monotone. “Take a clipboard and a pen. Fill out all the forms on the clipboard, completely, every question, put the pen in the cup and the clipboard on the counter, then sit down and wait for your number to be called, do not come up to that window unless I call your number, after that someone else will call you to go back and see the doctor, No, I cannot tell you how long it will take for the doctor to see you, it takes as long as it takes and bugging me at the window will not speed it up, if you are too sick to wait then go to an emergency room, if you don’t follow the rules, you will have to leave, if you don’t want to wait for the doctor today you will have to come back at another time and go through the whole process again. We do not make appointments for people who have not already seen one of the doctors, dentist or counselors. If the person that sees you today decides that you need to come back for a follow up, then and only then will you be given an appointment. If you have to smoke you better do it quickly in the designated area and get right back in here because if we call your name and you are not in here then you won’t be seen today. You will have to try another day.”

I glanced around at the walls of the room. Big signs said, ‘You must do this’, or ‘You must not do that’. There was tape on the floor and a sign on a stand telling you not to go any closer to the window until your number or name was called.

I was thinking the woman was a bit of a control freak with way to many rules but then 3 said, “I’m third what time will the doctor see me, I need to let my ride know when to come and get me?” and before the woman could respond, 4 asked, “so what do we do with these clipboards?” and 1 informed her that he’d wet himself.

Okay so maybe they really did need most of the rules. 2 took the seat beside me even though there were 20 open chairs. 3 had sat on a different row but got up and sat down on the other side of 2. I tried to block out her flirtatious conversation with 2 while I filled out my paperwork. I answered every question as instructed.

Thirty minutes later 2 was getting fidgety. Ignoring 3s obvious come-ons he lamented to me that at this rate he was going to miss out on the biscuits and gravy because they still hadn’t even called 1 to the window yet.

The lady had handed 1 a couple of old towels and gone back to her safe place behind locked doors and the sturdy pexiglass window she could close. He put them down on a chair and sat on them. 4 almost stepped in the puddle on the floor on his way to the bathroom.

I went into the women’s bathroom and got a handful of paper towels then came back and dropped them over the puddle. At least this way it would be more obvious so people could avoid it. I couldn’t bring myself to do more.

When I went back and sat down and 2 started talking to me again, 3 got up and stomped over to the window, where 1 was finally getting to tell the woman why he was there.

I cringed at her blatant rule breaking. The woman at the window ordered her to wait her turn or leave and she stomped over and sat down on the other side of the room.

2 was called up to the window and I was surprised when only a couple of minutes later he was standing in front of me.

“I’m going to run back and see if I can get some more biscuits and gravy.” I judged the distance to be about 4 or 5 blocks. “If they call my name while I’m gone please try to stall them. I’ll be right back, I swear I will.”

“I’ll try.” I wasn’t all that confident that they would listen to me. They had their rules and orderly process and I was a newbie. On the other hand, I owed him for making sure I got a number.

Of course they called his name before he was back. The nursing student stared at me in shock when I walked up to her. Guessing correctly that I was not the man she was calling. Her gaze shift to a nearby sign on the wall that proclaimed that you could not take someone else’s appointment even if you had their permission.

“He just stepped outside for a minute. He’ll be right back, please don’t skip him. He really needs to be seen today.”

She let out a big sigh, “I’m supposed to return his file to the office and go on to the next person if the one I call isn’t hear. They don’t get be seen at all once I return it to the office. They are just out of luck for the day.”

“Please, he said he’ll be right back.”

“Is he just out there smoking?”

Should I lie? I remained silent and she jumped to her own conclusion. “

I’ll wait a minute if you want to go holler at him to get in here real quick.” She cut a furtive look toward the woman at the window. Thankfully she was busy on the phone and didn’t notice our conversation.

I’d seen a bunch of signs posted on the outside of the building and in the parking lot telling people they had to smoke on the far side of the parking lot in one little area with a picnic table and large ashtray.

I turned and headed for the door as if he really was in the parking lot smoking. I stepped outside and looked out over the parking lot, no sign of him. I came back in slowly dreading the moment when the girl realized he wasn’t following me.

4 walked over to me and whispered, “She took 3 back but I got her to agree to see 2 if he’s back in here when 3 is done.” I didn’t know how he’d convinced her but I was glad he had.

“Oh good, that should give him plenty of time.”

I realized in the next few minutes of casual conversation with 4 that like me, he saw himself as a visitor in this alternate universe. He was grateful to 2, who he’d met the day before at a bus stop. 2 had told him all about this free clinic and where and when he could get a free meal that day. Things that 4 had never expected to need to know.

He’d had a fairly good job before illness struck. He’d had to miss a lot of work and instead of out-right firing him, his boss had just stopped scheduling him for more than a day here and there (Exactly what was happening to me now).

Once he saw the doctor here, he was hoping to be able to get his medicine from the clinic so he could get well enough to work fulltime again. He intended to apply at some bigger companies who offered insurance. His plan was realistic because he had some experience and skills for the jobs he had in mind.

I was very interested in 4’s views but I was also hyper-aware of the minutes slipping by. 3 could be done at any time now and 2 still wasn’t back yet.

People with the coveted appointments had been drifting in steadily so I'd stopped looking every time the door opened. I listened to a woman screaming at the window lady about not being able to see a doctor.

“Didn’t you come in here one day last week?” the window lady fired back. “I thought so. I’m sure I explained to you then that you have to show up real early. 10 o’clock is not early. We open the doors at 7:30 and were usually having to turn people away by 7:31.”

The screaming woman said, “But I’m really sick!” I glanced around at the other waiting people and thought ‘yeah, so?” There wasn’t a single person that looked like they’d come here because they thought it would be a pleasant way to spend the day.

Just as I finished that thought, someone stepped in front of me and I looked up to see 2 smiling down at me. He was carrying two tall cups of coffee and a take-out box.

“I brought you a cup of coffee.”

I thanked him but had to add that I don’t drink coffee. “Why don’t you give it to 4? He was able to talk the girl into holding on to your file and seeing you next.”

They passed the coffee and fist bumped over my lap then 2 opened up his box of biscuits and gravy. He offered to share with me. Again, I told him no thank you but I was impressed that he’d offered.

I was hoping the window lady was too busy to notice him because several signs proclaimed, “NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED”. He quickly devoured the evidence of his blatant rule breaking then went back to chatting with me.

He wasn’t coming on too strong but he was definitely coming on to me. I saw he had a great sense of humor and I’d witnessed and heard about his kind acts. I was wondering if he’d settle for just hanging out some time as a friend when he dropped his little bombshell in an off handed manner.

“And I’m completely off the Meth now.”

“Now?” I tried to sound casual.

“It’s been two weeks since I touched it. I know I’m going to stay off it this time because that’s the longest I’ve gone without it in years.”

Two whole weeks.

3 walked past us and out the door. I looked over and the girl was back at the door to the exam rooms. She was smiling at 4 when she called 2’s name. I looked at him and I had an idea how he’d convinced her to break with procedure. He had a nice smile.

“You didn’t give me your digits,” 2 said as he stood up.

The girl called his name again.

“I don’t have a phone.”

“How can I get a hold of you?” He held up a finger as if to say, just a minute then tried his smile on the girl but it didn’t have the same effect on her as 4’s had. She was growing impatient.

“Give me your address then or tell me where you work.”

“I’ll think about it and let you know when you come out.”

While I waited for my turn to see the doctor I asked myself if I was just too picky when it came to men. After all, I’ve been single a long time now. Here was this man who had almost nothing but was willing to share what he did have with me (food and drink).

Did a generous spirit out way weigh a history of substance abuse? His comment replayed in my head, “And I’m completely off the Meth now.”

Sorry 2, I'm completely off the co-dependence roller coaster now and not ready to take another ride on it.

Besides if I ever change my mind, I know where to start looking for him.

Crazy Writer goes to Canada. part 3.

Toilet humor - or more precisely pit toilet humor.

As a frequent traveler of the US highway systems, I’m used to rest stop areas featuring these sturdy looking bathrooms.

A lot of the rest stops along the ALCAN feature bathrooms that are more like the old fashioned outhouses or pit toilets.

You’ll notice the buildings are wood and the doors just a thin slab with a little hook & eye type lock. Most of them also set right at the edge of heavily wooded areas.

Most of our stops far from towns featured the pit toilet and one of these types of trash cans. I could not resist pointing out to J, who had to make ‘pit stops’ (pun intended) more frequently than I, that the trash in these areas are better protected than her inside one of these little restrooms. Plus the trash cans smelled better than the bathrooms.

One night we were driving well past dark because we’d mis-judged how long it would take us to get to the next town with a motel. We had seen 3 bears near the road that day.  One just 20 minutes before she said she just had to stop. There were no lights at all in the area so all we could see was what was directly ahead of us in the headlights.

J pulled up as close to the pit toilet as she possibly could and left the headlights on so she could hopefully see a little bit once she got inside (it’s difficult to hold a flashlight and undo clothing at the same time). She added yet another new duty to the growing list of riding shotgun responsibilities. I was to keep one hand on the horn while continuously scouring the surrounding area for any sign of a bear. Her theory was that if I honked the horn to alert her to the presence of a bear she could make a mad dash back to the car.

Because I’m a very supportive friend and don’t like to dwell on the negative, I refrained from pointing out that the bears we saw that day were all black and would have to be very close to the car in order for me to see them in the very dark area outside of the headlights.

I wrote a little poem about the next series of events which in hind sight I found extremely funny. J did not see the humor at all when I read it to her the next day and somehow the page got ripped out of my notebook and tossed out the car window.

Alas I’ll never be able to match the cleverness of my original rhyme written while the incident was so fresh in my mind (plus the whole threat of murder) but I will tell you that it involved the rustling of dried leaves, the screech of an owl, a nervous hand jerking unintentionally against a car horn, and a frightened woman stumbling out of her own jeans during a desperate dash toward the safety of the car.

A car, I might add, that became decidedly unsafe for the other woman with the nervous hand.

Crazy Writer goes to Canada. part 2.

 

Stupid tourist mistakes.

Several hours after the sticky window incident we came across a huge black bear lying on the side of the road. It was her side of the road so I didn’t mind the fact that once again she stopped the car. We didn’t see any movements from it but there wasn’t any blood or anything to indicate what had happened to it either.

I had an idea for a great picture to share with our friends at home. I told J to get out and put one foot on the bear. I figured we'd tell people she'd fought the bear and won.

For some odd reason (maybe she is less crazy than me), J was reluctant to do that but she volunteered to stay in the car while I got out and posed. She said the pictures should come out just as good without her getting any closer to the bear than she was at that time.

We were stopped there in the middle of the road for several minutes discussing which of us should pose and which should take the pictures. Before we could decide we saw another car approaching so we ended up just driving off without either of us posing.

When we got to the next town we stopped for gas. J mentioned to the person at the gas station that we had seen a bear on the side of the road that appeared to be dead.

The Canadian commented, “Aye we know about the bear. A truck hit it early today but I just sent someone to go pick it up because of the stupid tourists.”

I avoided eye contact with J and asked, “Stupid tourists?”

“Aye the stupid tourists keep stopping there and getting OUT of their cars to take pictures of it. Can you believe people are so stupid? One of them are gonna get killed for sure. They couldn’t even be sure the bear was dead. Sometimes being hit by a car just stuns them and of course other bears might come around at any time. People on vacation seem to be on vacation from common sense around these parts.” She was shaking her head.

J sent me an ‘I told you so’ kind of look but I managed to keep a straight face as I acted shocked that anyone would even consider getting out of their car near an injured bear.” I slid back in the car real quick.

J waited until we’d pulled back on to the highway until she burst out laughing. “Stupid tourists.” She muttered.

“Yeah, stupid tourists.” I said joining in the laughter. I made myself a little promise right there to avoid stupid tourists mistakes and be more cautious.



The next day we were driving along in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hours from ‘bump in the road’ but still an hour from ‘hole in the wall’ when a little bear ran right across the road in front of our car.

“Oh look, it’s a baby bear. How cute.” J stopped the car right across from where the little guy was scampering up a steep embankment. We both pulled out our cameras and she lowered her window so we could get better pictures.

The bear stopped at the top of the embankment and looked back at us as if he was posing so we’d have time to get his picture. He was making little bear noises and we were busy clicking away with our cameras and commenting on how adorable he was.

I was startled by a loud growling noise coming from the opposite side of the road. A huge bear was charging straight at our car. My side of the car. “Go! Drive!” I screamed.

J hit the gas and we shot forward just in time to avoid the bear hitting the side of the car. My side of the car.

I turned to look back as momma bear seemed to be trying to decide whether to chase us or join her baby. A few pounding heartbeats later she headed on up the embankment toward her baby and I let out the breath I was holding.

It was time for another gas station stop when we reached ‘hole in the wall’.

The friendly station attendant came out to chat a bit while we filled up the tank. She asked where we’d come from and where we were headed. After we told her, she casually asked us if we’d seen any bears along our drive.

I told her we had seen a cute little baby bear and I was just about to tell her about the scary momma bear when she gave a snort of laughter. “Well at least you didn’t stop and try to take pictures of it like this fool did a couple of days ago.”

“Oh?” Again I tried to look like the thought had never crossed my mind.

She grabbed a picture and brought it over for us to look at. It was of a jeep with the soft cover top ripped and hanging in shreds.  There were a few dark stains on the seat and some dents along the side. “This fool thought he’d just stop right smack dab in the middle of the road and take some pictures. He didn’t even look around to see where the momma was. Of course the momma’s not gonna be far from her baby. There he was in his little jeep sitting between her and her baby. She tried to go right through the jeep. He got so scared he was having trouble shifting and taking off. The jeep died and the momma bear went to ripping up the jeep. She managed to catch him on the shoulder with a paw swipe before he could get the jeep moving.”

“The man’s lucky all he got was a few deep scratches from her paw. Can you imagine someone seeing a baby bear and not bothering to see where the momma is before they stop?”

“No,” I said with wide eyed innocence. “I can’t imagine anyone doing that.”

Crazy Writer goes to Canada.

A writer friend of mine (let's call her J so she can't sue my as*) just happened to be driving back to the Ozarks from Fairbanks, Alaska (where she left her husband to mine for gold, literally) and he thought it would be a good idea for her to have some company and supervision on the long journey.  He really didn't know me all that well.  Insert menical laughter here. 
Oh the stories I could tell of bears, pit toilets, thaw bulbs, hunky long-haired hikers and silly tourist mistakes, if only J hadn’t threatened to murderer me in my sleep if I ever wrote about it.

Surprise! This Crazy Writer doesn’t mind living dangerously so here are a few of my crazy Canadain adventures.

Bears, writers and sticky electric windows, OH MY!!!

Bear Adventures.

It was early evening on our first day of driving along the ALCAN (Alaska Canada Highway) headed south when we spotted our first bear. It looked huge as it leisurely crossed the road in front of us. We had to stop to avoid hitting it when he paused in our lane to stare at us.

I fumbled around for my camera and J threw the car in park so she could reach hers on the back seat.
Apparently we didn’t look too interesting or tasty because after a couple of moments he went on across the road. I finally found my camera and got this picture as he walked away.

I swear that black blob inside the circle is the second bear we spotted.  Don't worry my camera skills improved along the way.
On our second full day of driving I was alert for bear, elk or moose sightings with my camera always handy so of course the only animals we spotted that day were a couple of little deers much like the hundreds of deers I've seen in the Ozarks.
I did however spot a man with long black hair and a scupted body walking along the highway in the middle of nowhere.  J ignored my pleas to stop the car so I could offer him a ride and I missed my chance to photograph the beautiful speciman of manhood in his natural habitat.  I'm only guessing about it being his natural habitat because he looked to be of Athabaskan Indian decent.

The third bear I spotted was standing on the shoulder of the highway as if he was just waiting for someone to come by and take his picture. J was afraid the car might scare him off so she proceeded slowly up to where he was standing. I forgot to snap any pictures as I stared out the side window at the bear that was only one good lunge from my side of the car.


He stared at me intently moving his head slightly this way and that as if to make sure he saw all my strange attributes. After a moment of this he curled his lip and sort of wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. That’s when it struck me that he was acting just like visitors to the zoo do only I was now the animal trapped on display in the small container and he was free to wander on to the next exibit.

Once he’d had a good long look he turned around and walked a few feet away into some high grass. He turned back toward us and laid down. I could still see his head and back and I finally remembered the camera in my hand.

J had frantically been searching in the back seat for her camera but I had ignored all her pleas for help in finding it.

While J was getting the cap off her camera lens, I reviewed my pictures on the tiny screen. They were all blurry because of the reflection from the door window.

“Oh shoot these didn’t come out because of the window.”

“Roll it down.” J said.

I looked from her to the bear. He was on my side of the car and really close. A shiver of unease traveled down my spine. “I guess I can keep my finger on the electronic button and get it up before he can reach us.”

“Yeah, yeah just hurry up and do it before he decides to leave.”

I kept my eyes glued on the bear as I pushed the button.

“Lean back you’re in my shot. I moved slightly but she waved me farther back. “You’ll have to move the seat back you’re still in my shot.”

It took me a moment as I had to contort my body awkwardly to keep my finger on the button, my eye on the bear and find the seat lever with my other hand all at one time.

I eased the seat back and was startled when my finger slipped off the button and the column between the front and back seats blocked my view of the bear. “Ooppps,” I said leaning forward in the seat and getting my finger back on the window button.

“Wait you’re in my shot again,” J complained. “Lean back.”

“But I can’t see the bear when I lean back. I want to be able to put the window up if he moves toward us.”

“He’s not moving, lean back.”

With my heart pounding madly I eased back. I heard her camera click and leaned up to check on the bear again. She shooed me back and I leaned back for a second while trying to keep my now sweaty finger from slipping of the window button. We repeated this process several more times. I’d lean back hear her camera click then lean forward to check that the bear was moving toward us.

How many freakin pictures did she need, I wondered. A rumbling growl emerged from the beast and his paw slapped down the grass in front of him. In a panic I pushed the window button.

“Wait! Don’t roll it up yet. I can see him so much better now that he flattening the grass in front of him.”

I paused with the window only up a few inches. “But what if he comes at us? He’s very close and he’ll get me first,” I complained.

“Don’t be silly, he--”

He let out a loud growl and lurched forward. I pressed the window button, the window moved sluggishly. “Oh no!” It stalled all together and I let out a squeak of alarm and stabbed at the button. Another growl and I was yelling at J to drop her camera and drive. The window started moving again but way to slow. The bear could still stick a big claw in if he wanted to bad enough.

J dropped her camera with a muttered complaint about me not fulfilling my ‘shotgun’ obligations but at least she threw the car into drive while she muttered and the car shot forward.

Thankfully the bear did not give chase so I saw it as a disaster averted. J refers to it as a missed opportunity for some really close up pictures.

During the first hour of our road trip she did explain to me that riding shotgun (front passenger) meant I would have to do certain things to help out the drive but at no time prior to this did she mention that it included being bear bait.