The Creature in the Garage
Gather round, my kids, and hear a tale of things that go bump in the night.
There we were, all snug in our beds in that remote hilltop cabin, dreaming of chocolate chip cookies, or flying through the forest on bikes, or nothing at all.
But what was that sound? It was like the pots were fighting the pans. And losing. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs, staggered out of bed, and peered out through the screen door into the night. Dang raccoons. Probably messing with on the garden tools over by the woodshed again. I couldn't see anything, so I figured they'd run off. I turned to head back to bed, and then BANG, BOOM! Hunh. Apparently still there.
Michele handed me a flashlight. Oh hey, she was awake too. Yeah, with that racket, not too surprising. I poked the light around a little more but still couldn't see anything through the screen. I started to open the door to step out and get a better view. Then I stopped. Did I really want to do that? What if the coons were right there on the driveway? What if it wasn't coons? Aw heck, let's go see. I stepped out and shined the light around. Nothing.
BANG RUMBLE!! BOOM! BANG!
Snort.
"Snort?"
I edged carefully toward the garage, just a few feet away. The metal garage door was still shaking from the abuse it had just taken. But the garage door was down, and there was no way in to that part. How could the raccoons, or whatever it was, get into the closed garage? Was I imagining things?
"Careful honey. We don't know what it is." "Yeah."
"And put on some pants." "Oh. Yeah."
Appropriately attired, I went over to the garage door to open it up.
SNORT. BANG! BANG!!!
The door shook so hard that red dust was flying off it. I thought I might see little pieces of shrapnel come flying off, or the door itself explode out of the garage like a spitwad out of a straw. I stopped. But I was curious, so I scooted forward again and tried to lift the door.
BOOM!! The door shuddered. I jumped. Then I hammered back on the door. Small boom.
"What are you doing honey?" "Well, I figured I'd open the door to see what it was."
"Honey, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" "Oh. Yeah."
I grabbed a big plastic bike cargo box that I had out for packing the next day, and arranged it so that if I used a pole to push open the garage door, I could hopefully hide behind the box to be protected. Or maybe throw the bike box at whatever it was. I crouched down behind it and shoved the door with the pole.
No luck. That door wouldn't budge.
Maybe I was just a wimp. I pushed harder. No luck. Hunh. Usually that door just floated open with a gentle touch. Maybe that thing in there was sitting on it somehow?
Michele and I conferred. "I think it's probably a couple of raccoons, looking for food." "Are you sure?" "Well, no, but, c'mon." "Honey, our empty bags are in there. We need to start packing later this morning to go to the airport. What are we going to do?" "Well... there's a back door... maybe I can go in that way to find a way to open the garage door or get whatever it is in there to go out that way."
I walked around the garage, shining the way through the dark with my light, hoping whatever it was in there didn't have buddies out here. On my way around, I saw a small window. I shined my light in through the screen and dirty glass, hoping to catch a glance. A black shape moved in the dim, looking toward me. It smiled.
I calmly walked back around to the front. Calmly.
"It's a bear."
We held a small conference. "What do we do?" "I could try to let it out." "Are you nuts?" "But our bags." "IT'S A BEAR." "Right." "Let's wake up my parents and see if they know who to call." "Right."
While Michele went to the main house to talk to her parents, I went around back again. I wanted that thing out. I found the back door to the garage. It was closed. It led into the larger garage, and from there was a second small door that led to the smaller garage. The bear's garage. I looked at that second small door. If I opened it, would there be a huge growling bear with dripping fangs and steel claws on the other side? I decided not to find out just then.
Pretty soon we had another conference. "Should we call 911?" "No, the animal folks." "At 5am?" "Ok, 911". "Hello... yes, we've got a bit of an issue... yeah, we have a bear in our garage... yes, in our garage... yes, a bear... well, my husband says it's a small bear... yes I can hold... ok, call me back..."
While we waited for them to call back, we showed the grandparents the scene through the small window. "Oh my, yes, that's a bear." "Yep." "But George, we have a lot of stuff in there." "Yep." "That's not good." "Nope." "Oh dear."
We waited. The grandparents headed back into the big house to wait for the call back. I thought about ways to get that bear out of there on my own and figured I'd get in trouble with my wife if they worked, and the bear if they didn't. Not really sure which would be worse. All was quiet and it was 5am, so I went back in the cabin to take a nap while we waited.
BANG BOOM BOOM BANG!! Michele went back out. "Yes bear, we are still here. No, we didn't go away. No, you don't need to do all that knocking around, you can just sit there quietly since you know there are humans here. That's right bear, that's good". I gazed at her with early-morning disbelief. "We don't want it destroying our luggage! It's sitting on your bike gear!!" She was right.
And the bear quieted down. Amazing. (I guess all that twin baby experience does come in handy!)
After a while of this, the sheriff called. They'd dispatched someone out to our hill to help out. Great! They must deal with stuff all of the time. Maybe we would get back to sleep soon.
We waited around, confirming every once in a while that the bear was still in there, and that it was still a bear. Yep.
An official-looking car arrived pretty quickly. It said "Nevada County Sheriff" on the side. A young kid got out. He said "Deputy" all over. He was not carrying a tranquilizer gun, or a shotgun, or a bear cage. We explained the situation to him. He nodded wisely. "Well," he said, "this is a new one to me. You guys have any ideas about what to do?"
We looked blankly at him.
He got on the radio with Dispatch, and they called Fish & Game. No answer. While we waited, he said, "well, let's go see it." We strolled over to the window and peered in. "Where is it? Oh yeah. Well, look at that. Definitely a bear. And I would have say that's at least a medium-sized one at that." Having upgraded our bear, we went back to the squad car to wait.
"Yeah," he said to the radio. "Yeah, I know it's the morning after the fourth of July, but you'd still think that having a 24-hour emergency on-call guy means that there's someone on call 24-hours a day for emergencies, wouldn't ya?" I groaned quietly to myself. Now we were going to be here all morning with that bear in there, maybe missing our flight... maybe I should have tried to let the bear out myself before getting someone else involved. Oh well.
He looked at George and I. "Looks like this one is ours to solve." They discussed it a little bit more. Where was the back door? And how did that relate to the big garage? And was that bear more likely to come rushing out, or, as the deputy seemed to think, more likely to stay in there and become a problem by wanting to hang out and not leave?
While this was going on, I dropped back in the cabin to fill in Michele. Whoops. Our girls were awake, on the couch, snuggling with their grandmother. They'd figured out something was up, but weren't quite aware there was a bear about 20 feet from where they were sitting. We quickly shooed them into the main house, explaining that the police car in the driveway was there because of "a problem with the garage". They weren't buying it, but at 5am they were struggling with how to protest.
The Guy Team went into the garage on recon. We showed the deputy the doors. What was that smell? Well, said George, that's probably why the bear was there... see, they'd just picked up a huge load of fertilizer that had a fish base, which was stored in the garage... and by the smell of things, that fertilizer was now smeared all over everything. Awesome.
We went back out in front. Deputy Micah and I plotted. We would go on the theory that the bear would not come rushing out... maybe he was in a fertilizer daze, or just happy where he was. We would open up the door into the big garage, giving the bear an exit out the back. I would watch through the window while the Deputy would open the door. If the bear moved, I'd yell, and the Deputy would get himself outta there lickety-split. If the bear didn't move, then the Deputy would head back to front of the garage door with pepper spray to make the bear want to go away, while I would climb up on the woodshed where I could see the back entrance. "We have a plan?" "Let's do it." "Go."
George went into the cabin to keep an eye on my still-sleeping son. I went to the window and peered in at the bear. Deputy Micah went to the back door. I started running color commentary. "He's pacing. Now he's just still. He's still there. He's yawning. Ooo, big teeth. Still there." I heard the back door open. "He's still there, stopped moving, looking your way, not moving." Micah came running around the corner, headed to the squad car. I climbed up the ladder to the roof.
Nothing happened. No bear. Open doors, nothing going on. Maybe the Deputy was right. Maybe it didn't want to leave? Great.
Now at this point in our story, something amazing happened. My son woke up in the cabin. Every other day of vacation, Andre had been the first one up, off working on his projects long before anyone else had even considered batting an eye. But this morning, his sisters were already out of their beds and gone. His parents were out. And, almost impossibly, his grandfather was there with him, awake. It was like backwards day! So that bear accomplished what none of the rest of us had come close to.
Meanwhile, I walked over to the garage roof and and looked down at the Deputy. We talked plan. The pepper spray hadn't worked, but the car's air horn might. Cool. I hollered over to the big house, telling Michele and the girls, who were watching this whole thing, to cover their ears. I went back to look down at the back of the garage, and Micah let it rip. WHOOOOOOP WHOOOOOOOOP. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
And then WHOOSH, a black bear came galloping out of the back of the garage. I had my camera out and clicked vainly as fast as I could as the bear ran like a jackrabbit down the hill into the woods, vanishing in seconds.
Huzzah!
I climbed down and went over the car. "You got him. He went racing out back and is long gone." "Yeah... he poked his head out of the other garage door, saw me, and went running your way. Let's just confirm though - that was a medium-sized bear, right? " "Yeah. Bigger than a dog, smaller than a pony." "Yeah."
We yelled to everyone that the coast was clear, then went into the garage to have a look around. Broken glass, torn boxes, fertilizer over everything. The garage door had been seriously abused, with the bottom strips ripped off and huge dents all over. It turned out the door was locked from inside with those serious metal bars that are standard on most garage doors..
The bear must have smelled those fish, came to explore, lifted the door, gone inside, let the door close behind, and then tried to open it again, bumping into and closing the lock. And then it was stuck.
We went out, everyone gathered around. We made small talk, shook hands, and Deputy Micah took off for his next adventure. Gotta say, I was a lot more impressed with him as he left than when he showed up.
We took a look at our empty suitcases. They were coated with fertilizer goo, but there was no major damage... seemed like they would probably work ok, as long as we could survive with all our stuff smelling like dead fish and slightly perturbed bear.