I know this may not seem an amazing feet to anyone out there, but twenty years ago a man left from the Balkans as a tourist in search of cheaper booze, and returned with a bear.
A fucking bear.
In his fucking communist fucking car (I hope I painted a pretty picture).
I could end this right now.
I, sadly, do not know the man who bought the bear off of some Russian, but I do know these facts:
1. A man went to Russia twenty years ago.
2. He got drunk.
3. He bought crates of vodka to smuggle across the border with his newly purchased bear.
4. When he finally became sober, he donated the aforesaid Ursus Arctos to the local zoo when he found that owning a bear may not rock, or be cheep.
5. There was no paper trail and everybody forgot.
I am forced to speculate about the details. Hear my speculation.
The man in question was obviously one of the brighter Croatians with the knowledge that the proportion of your holiday rocking is proportional to the amount of booze. Very cheap booze.
It was probably your ordinary communist border check.
You could imagine that there was an impolite man taking you out of the line to ask you some very harsh questions after which you would bitch for weeks on end to everyone, as is acceptable in the democratic world or you could summon a communist fantasy of some kind. Perhaps the border guards are dressed in red. Perhaps you are naked and they are looking between your toes for drugs. Perhaps not.
More likely (but not certainly) they are merely drunk, and being communists, have no interest in doing real work unless there is a metaphorical or real man threatening to whip them (metaphorically) as they get the same money from working and pretending to work.
Everything goes swell for the man (we'll call him Mirko). He gets wildly drunk with Russians, gypsies and farm animals (or city farm animals, if he was in a city). We shall assume that he was not in Moscow because they are a bunch of hipster "I'm better than you" folk.
Mirko purchased many crates of vodka and perhaps other stuff. He was talked into buying a bear very cheaply.
I can imagine how that conversation went down. Imagine Eastern European accents for the following.
"Hey, nice bear," said Mirko, he had been drinking all night with the village folk (all of them) around a bonfire. The embers were still glowing as dawn approached.
The villagers hoped the person would purchase even more from them. The naive idiot had already been coerced into buying everyone drinks.
"You want bear?" The village hotshot manages to pronounce in a slurring voice.
Mirko pretends to think it over.
"I want bear."
I don't know if it was small or medium or had to be strapped to his car roof alive so I will assume that it was strapped to the roof from this point on.
So back across the many borders Mirko had to go lugging his vodka crates and bear.
He eventually had to encounter a border. With police and shit.
Unless he was smuggling the bear across areas without roads, past villagers and forests, which would be too hilarious to exist without imploding the universe.
Knowing the minds of the people around here, I understand how this most likely went down.
"I see you are taking bear across border." The border guard adjusts his special border guard hat and pretends that he is not stumbling around drunk.
"Da," says Mirko.
"You are not a gypsy, you have no legal right to own bear. I have to check your vehicle to see if you have a gypsy in there, to give you legal rights to this bear."
"Shit!" Mirko proclaims. The border guards rummage about.
"I see your are also taking, ah, seven crates of alcohol more than is allowed across the border..."
"Uh, da"
(Drinking ensues)
Mirko wakes up hung over and with one crate of vodka bribe less than before.
Note that he had to cross several borders with a bear and crates of alcohol.
Several bribes down the road I'll have to assume Mirko came home and gave himself a pat on the back for using the old, distract them with a bear and crates of alcohol to smuggle cigarettes inside the car seats.
Seeing that there is no practical purpose for a bear. He donated it to the zoo. Who took it happily.
Hooray I took a nice rumor with some truth (Man returns from Russia with a bear after being gloriously drunk and donates it to zoo), and turned it into neat fabrication.
Yay me.
A fucking bear.
In his fucking communist fucking car (I hope I painted a pretty picture).
I could end this right now.
I, sadly, do not know the man who bought the bear off of some Russian, but I do know these facts:
1. A man went to Russia twenty years ago.
2. He got drunk.
3. He bought crates of vodka to smuggle across the border with his newly purchased bear.
4. When he finally became sober, he donated the aforesaid Ursus Arctos to the local zoo when he found that owning a bear may not rock, or be cheep.
5. There was no paper trail and everybody forgot.
I am forced to speculate about the details. Hear my speculation.
The man in question was obviously one of the brighter Croatians with the knowledge that the proportion of your holiday rocking is proportional to the amount of booze. Very cheap booze.
It was probably your ordinary communist border check.
You could imagine that there was an impolite man taking you out of the line to ask you some very harsh questions after which you would bitch for weeks on end to everyone, as is acceptable in the democratic world or you could summon a communist fantasy of some kind. Perhaps the border guards are dressed in red. Perhaps you are naked and they are looking between your toes for drugs. Perhaps not.
More likely (but not certainly) they are merely drunk, and being communists, have no interest in doing real work unless there is a metaphorical or real man threatening to whip them (metaphorically) as they get the same money from working and pretending to work.
Everything goes swell for the man (we'll call him Mirko). He gets wildly drunk with Russians, gypsies and farm animals (or city farm animals, if he was in a city). We shall assume that he was not in Moscow because they are a bunch of hipster "I'm better than you" folk.
Mirko purchased many crates of vodka and perhaps other stuff. He was talked into buying a bear very cheaply.
I can imagine how that conversation went down. Imagine Eastern European accents for the following.
"Hey, nice bear," said Mirko, he had been drinking all night with the village folk (all of them) around a bonfire. The embers were still glowing as dawn approached.
The villagers hoped the person would purchase even more from them. The naive idiot had already been coerced into buying everyone drinks.
"You want bear?" The village hotshot manages to pronounce in a slurring voice.
Mirko pretends to think it over.
"I want bear."
I don't know if it was small or medium or had to be strapped to his car roof alive so I will assume that it was strapped to the roof from this point on.
So back across the many borders Mirko had to go lugging his vodka crates and bear.
He eventually had to encounter a border. With police and shit.
Unless he was smuggling the bear across areas without roads, past villagers and forests, which would be too hilarious to exist without imploding the universe.
Knowing the minds of the people around here, I understand how this most likely went down.
"I see you are taking bear across border." The border guard adjusts his special border guard hat and pretends that he is not stumbling around drunk.
"Da," says Mirko.
"You are not a gypsy, you have no legal right to own bear. I have to check your vehicle to see if you have a gypsy in there, to give you legal rights to this bear."
"Shit!" Mirko proclaims. The border guards rummage about.
"I see your are also taking, ah, seven crates of alcohol more than is allowed across the border..."
"Uh, da"
(Drinking ensues)
Mirko wakes up hung over and with one crate of vodka bribe less than before.
Note that he had to cross several borders with a bear and crates of alcohol.
Several bribes down the road I'll have to assume Mirko came home and gave himself a pat on the back for using the old, distract them with a bear and crates of alcohol to smuggle cigarettes inside the car seats.
Seeing that there is no practical purpose for a bear. He donated it to the zoo. Who took it happily.
Hooray I took a nice rumor with some truth (Man returns from Russia with a bear after being gloriously drunk and donates it to zoo), and turned it into neat fabrication.
Yay me.
2 comments:
Essentially, that's how I met my birth-mother for the first time. A good day.
Your linkage and others are coming as soon as I have some time.
Incidentally, because I feel I have to say something witty in answer to a non-troll:
Midgets.
That is all.
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