A bear ate my car

We had quite the interesting night last night! At about 1AM I was awakened by the sound of a car horn but thought I was imagining things. I checked on the girls and all was well with them so I went back to bed. At 4:30 the girls woke me up with the news that the car flashers/hazards were on. Mark is out of town so I was a bit nervous about leaving the girls alone while I checked it out but I went anyway.

Still in my jammies, I went to the driver's side door and tried to open it but it was jammed. I could only get the door open part way but enough to see that the inside of the car was absolutely trashed. I thought we'd been robbed and vandalized... until I saw the snout of a black bear.

I slammed the door shut, ran into the house and called 911. A half hour later the sheriff's deputies arrived and between us we talked with the Dept of Wildlife folks to determine what to do. Generally they want to make sure an animal won't ever return so they sometimes tranquilize the bear and relocate him/her. But because they were confident that the bear had a reasonably bad experience at our house they suggested we simply let him out. The deputies devised a plan to drive their SUV up to my car door and open it (with a Taser gun drawn just in case), but the winds were so strong that the door kept blowing closed. After the third attempt the door stayed open and the bear lumbered out and ran away. He was a well-fed, rotund fattie!! The girls watched the scene from inside the house.

After we surveyed the damage I dug through the bear slop and debris and got my purse and phone out of the car. This morning the local Bear Watch people came to have a look and offered me the use of their car if I needed it. Apparently a realtor in the area also had her car destroyed by a bear but her bear crashed out the back window. Mine was captive in my car for about 3 hours! We think he was attracted by a vanilla scent that was sprayed in the car yesterday at a local car wash. Other than that, there was no food in the car.

Imagine a pajama-clad mom coming nearly nose-to-nose with a bear at 4:30 AM! I'm not sure which of us was more freaked out at the sight of the other! Thankfully my insurance company (so far) is being great. They're paying for a rental car for me for 30 days while they have the car repaired. They suspect the entire interior of the car will need to be replaced but even that is less than the car is worth so for now the car is not totaled.

This has been enough excitement for one day! I'm looking forward to a quiet and peaceful weekend. When I called the girls' school to inform them that the girls wouldn't be in attendance today I said, "You might hear some excuses like, ‘My dog ate my homework' but my excuse is that a bear ate my car...