A Surprise Visit from Polar Man

I love going for walks.  Always have.  Once in a while, however, something really odd happens during my walk.  Take, for example, the time that my good friend Robin and I decided to take a nice walk to The Bagel Shop in our college town of Moscow, Idaho.  It was a beautiful spring day, and we anticipated that this walk would be a nice way to unwind and catch up.  What we didn't anticipate is having a conversation with a man who was dressed up in a polar bear costume.  Let's call him Polar Man.

We were almost there.  We had just walked past the One World Cafe on the corner of Main and 6th when something totally ridiculous caught our eye some twenty feet ahead of us.  That totally ridiculous something was Polar Man.  We giggled, and then we grew nervous when we noticed Polar Man was probably going to talk to us.  He was in our path, and there was no way of avoiding it.

Under her breath, I believe Robin even said something like, "Oh my God, Jackie!  What if he talks to us?"

As we neared Polar Man, we realized that our suspicions were true; we were indeed going to enter a conversation with this guy.  While I don't know what he said exactly, I know it was about the endangered species and the fact that Robin and I needed to save the polar bears.

The reason why I honestly cannot tell you what he said is because I was putting all of my focus and effort in desperately trying to hold it together.  That is, not bursting into uncontrollable laughter.  Despite my desperate attempts to keep it under control, my laughter had a mind of its own.  You know when you were a kid and your friend made you laugh in class, and you tried really hard not to laugh because laughing in class is inappropriate?  As a result, you ended up with your eyes filling up with tears, your face the color of a Roma tomato, a huge mental patient smile, and shoulders that wouldn't stop bouncing as you tried to gain control of the laughter seizure that had taken control of you.  Anyway, that is what this was like.  Only it was worse, because I had to look this guy in his polar bear face.  I couldn't look over at Robin because I knew she was going through the same predicament.

While many surprises fall into my path on these walks, the incident of Polar Man takes the cake.