Quote from "A Walk in the Woods"
“I was especially riveted by an amateur photograph in Herrero’s book, taken late at night by a camper with a flash at a campground out West. The photograph caught four black bears as they puzzled over a suspended food bag. The bears were clearly startled but not remotely alarmed by the flash. It was not the size or demeanor of the bears that troubled me — they looked almost comically unagressive, like four guys who had gotten a Frisbee caught up a tree — but their numbers. Up to that moment it had not occurred to me that bears might prowl in parties. What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children’s parties — I daresay it would even give a merry toot — and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag.”
— Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, pp. 18-19.
I’m humor-impaired. Few things make me laugh out loud. That passage did. How embarrassing is it that it’s potty humor?
drupagliassotti @ April 20, 2007