I keep a cannister of bear spray on a shelf by the mudroom door, next to a cakey-capped tube of sunscreen and two mostly empty and partly rusty green aerosol cans of OFF! Deep Woods insect repellent. I’ve never used the bear spray, and most days I forget to bring it with me when I trudge out into the woods, even though, to encourage the habit, I got a nifty little holster for it, with a carabiner for hooking it to a belt loop. Honestly, I’m more scared of the spray than of the bears. A few years ago, a robot in an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey inadvertently burst a cannister of bear spray, and twenty-four humans had to be hospitalized. (The robot was unharmed.) Technically, according to the label on my cannister, which is decorated with a drawing of a grizzly with a gaping red mouth, baring his teeth, it’s not bear spray. It’s “BEAR ATTACK DETERRENT,” and you can see why the clarification is necessary. Last spring, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation tweeted:
Listen,
bear spray
DOES NOT
work like bug spray.
We would like to not have to say that again.
Bear spray is dangerous, but hardly regulated in the U.S.: you can get it at a gun shop; you can get it at Walmart; in most states you can order it online. If you’re camping in the backcountry in certain national parks, you’re urged to carry it, and you damn well should, but having it on hand is no guarantee that you’ll know what to do if you encounter a bear. Most people are stupid about bears, and I’m one of them. Either they’re too scared (“bearanoia” is, I gather, the term for this) or they’re not scared enough (beardevils?).
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 24, 2023 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 24, 2023 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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ANTI HEROES
\"The Franchise,\" on HBO.
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS
The surprisingly sunny origins of the Frankfurt School.
NOW YOU SEE ME
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PARIS FRIEND - SHUANG XUETAO
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Robots learn to use their hands.
WITHHOLDING SEX FROM MY WIFE
In the wake of [the] election, progressive women, who are outraged over Donald Trump's victory at the ballot box, have taken to social media with public, vengeful vows of chastity. - The Free Press.
DEADLINE EXTENSION
Old age, reborn.