Where Are Bears When You Need Bears?

It’s sad that decency is mired in thick mud while selfishness prances with ballet slippers on shiny floors.

1.  (Not) Squeezing in.

I finished a swim meet at UCLA at about the time that a nearby softball tournament ended. Some 40 cars were lined up to leave the parking lot I was in. A long line of cars crawled along the road past the parking lot, and their drivers did not let drivers from the parking lot squeeze into the road.

While I waited for ten minutes, the parking-lot line of cars did not move. So I re-parked my car and hiked across campus into Westwood to enjoy an early dinner. That seemed to be a better idea than staring glumly at an unmoving line of cars.

2.  No peace to piss.

Close to the UCLA campus, I found an In-N-Out Burger restaurant. Great: decent food modestly priced. I ordered my burger-fries-and-shake and headed to the men’s room while my meal was being made. I had to wait in a short line outside the men's room. The men's room took one person at a time.

At my turn, I went in and locked the door behind me. I was in the bathroom briefly, and suddenly there was a busy pounding on the door. A young voice demanded to know if there was somebody in the men’s room. It sounded some eleven-to-twelve years old. I raised my voice and said that the bathroom was occupied.

That didn’t stop the pounding or the voice. The pounding continued, and the youngster said that he couldn’t hear me.

I doubt that that was true. I had raised my voice. And I could hear him fine. And I was in a bathroom, not a bank vault. But I raised my voice again, and said that the men’s room was occupied.

The pounding and importuning continued. Then, one last time, I said that the men’s room was occupied. I said it loud enough to be heard in the control tower of Los Angeles International Airport. (First air-traffic controller: "Hey, Bob, what was that?" Second air-traffic controller: "I don’t know, Burt, but he sounds enraged!") The pounding and the voice stopped.

A short time later, when I left the men’s room, I expected to see my tormentor. But the hallway outside the men’s room was empty. I walked into the dining area, and I looked through the glass doors in the front of the restaurant. A gaggle of eleven-to-twelve-year-old boys stood outside looking in, pensively. They soon left.

3.  Diverted by a littlle girl.

As I thought about being hectored in the men’s room, I was annoyed. Then, as I stood waiting for my order to be called, a young man with two little daughters asked me if I was waiting to order. I said, "No", and he moved forward to the cashier. But his daughters apparently did not see him move forward. He was wearing jeans, and I was wearing jeans. One of his little daughters pressed her arms against my leg until her father saw her and called her to him. That made me smile. When I grew irked at the men’s room incident, I remembered that little girl, and then I wasn’t irked.

4.  Meditation: cars, bears, and youngters.

After a satisfying, simple meal, I walked back to my car. I thought about three things.

First, I noticed that people who parked in the street along the campus parked in a way that people in front or behind them couldn’t move their cars. There was no room to maneuver away from the curb. I thought this was odd.

Second, I remembered a story of the prophet Elisha. He was walking, and a crowd of little children followed him, mocked him, and called out, "Go up, bald head! Go up, bald head!" Elisha turned and cursed them. Then two bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of them. (2 Kings 2:23-24.)

I don’t understand that story. I suppose it warns that, in the words of C.S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia, God is not a "tame lion". But at least now I better understand Elisha’s annoyance..

Third, I thought about the youngster pounding on the men’s room door, trying to vex me into rushing. I wondered what kind of manners he’d learned from his parents. I wondered if he would grow up and be a judge who demanded that every lawyer be in his courtroom right on time, with no excuses, with no slack for any lawyer who had to be in another courtroom.

I wondered if the youngster’s urgency did not come from a sense that his business in the men’s room was more important than anyone else’s, but from an affection for his friends that made him hate to make them wait. No way of knowing, of course. I said a prayer for him.

Why not? I couldn’t call bears to tear him.