Five Drink Minimum

After getting back from the Lukewarm family reunion I was beginning to suspect that I need a hobby. Not one of those mundane hobbies that boring people have, like knitting or playing cards or cow-tipping (a family favourite). No. I live with a bear; I sleep with mullet-wearing roadsters; my father is a real, live, drag-queen. What I’m getting at is that I need to set my sights high.

“I wouldn’t go getting ahead of yourself,” chuckles Sherman, the black bear who has been covering my room and board while I have been on sabbatical—from my non-tenured position at Dunkin’ Donuts. “You aren’t exactly skilled.”

“Thanks, mange,” I spit back. I wasn’t really angry with Sherman though. He is right. I am not what critics would call ‘skilled’ or ‘bright’ for that matter. I am bothered because I know that Sherman is about to leave me. Not forever; but, for the winter. He is a bear and that’s what bears do. This means I am going to have to develop what recruiters define as a ‘skill-set’ at something I can tolerate doing until my by big hairy Sherman unthaws on the other side of the shittiest season ever made. Or, what my grandmother calls “God’s fuck you to Canadians”.

“Maybe I’ll grow a moustache.” I think about this for a minute. I stroke the cool skin under my nose and imagine all of the options. There is the pencil moustache, which would speak to my Machiavellian side, or the unkempt moustache, which would comment on my life in a bush living with a bear.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” suggests Sherman.

“Why not?” I question, insecurely. Will my giant bear-friend with cuddling benefits disown me if I grow a moustache? Maybe he doesn’t like change. Maybe I am one of those hideous people that not even a mother can love. Especially after last week’s Skype-interchange:

Mother: "So, Scott, I read your blog..."

 Scott: "It's mostly fiction..."

Mother: "It must be...I thought you liked my cooking."

Scott: ...awkward silence..."I think I'm losing the connection."

Or, perhaps my Sherman has just lost interest in me altogether. It wouldn’t be the first time. I am a bit of a unique character and it must take a lot of stamina to deal with me on a day-in, day-out basis. Maybe he is two-timing me with that hussy skunk that flirts with him every time we go to book club. Screw this, the possibilities are endless and I’m too lazy to contemplate any other scenarios.

“Okay Sherman, out with it,” I say, tears welling in my eyes. Am I really this emotionally attached? He has kept me warm; consoled me when I have been down and supported my every action and ridiculous dream. He even gets me honey in the morning. Could this be love? Am I realizing it in the same instant I may be losing it?

“Out with what?” he asks.

“If you are done with me,” I huff. “All you have to do is say so. I’ll go. You can have your forest back the way it was last spring.”

Sherman looks over at me bewildered. It has become his usual expression. The same one he donned the first time I tried to make him a meal (I am not his mother). The very one he wore when he tried to introduce me to his sister and I ran screaming like a fourth grader (she was unhinging her jaw to eat me whole…I swear). The one he uses to conceal his desire for me to be just the tiniest bit closer to his intellectual capabilities.

“Scott, I love you,” Sherman says, as he comes to my side. He hugs me. Not tightly—the way his wildebeest sister would have so she could have chewed my left leg like it was a Wendy’s happy-meal—but with that warm affection that tells you this could really be the one. It’s the way someone hugs you when they know the shape of your silhouette better than you do. “I only meant that since you have allergies, a moustache is a really bad idea. It traps dust.”

Oh, so maybe that look of bewilderment has really been one of mysticism this whole time. A sort of trance I put over Sherman.

Then I look down at my sleeve. There is honey all over it. No, the look is probably one of bemused bewilderment. Sherman is probably shocked at how he could love someone as daft as I am. But, then, maybe that is how life works sometimes. We’re never sure what it is that will make us happy until we find it. Sometimes we are too scared to take a chance when we find that thing that will bring us joy and it looks different than we were once trained to believe. In the rare instances that we do, it holds all the possibility of this world though.

Well, unless you are Sherman, and then you are just stuck with a beast like me. It’s what my grandmother calls “a tough break, Sherman”.

“You’re right,” I lament. “No moustache. Maybe I’ll start doing stand-up.”

Just then, Sherman’s sister, Roseanne, lumbers into the entrance of the cave. “I wouldn’t,” she says. “They’d need a five drink minimum to tolerate your bull.”

She has a point. Plus, she really has me schooled when it comes to the moustache.

“Now get in my belly!” she roars.

And that’s when Sherman does it. He steps in front of me. He has my back even in the face of a lumberjack he calls ‘sister’. Ah. Life is good.  This is love. Even if it took a five drink minimum to get us here.