LISTEN UP!!

Since I retired from teaching, I’ve found that no one listens to me anymore. Big Bore pretends to be deaf, and the cats are only interested in communicating with me if they’re hungry. Thus, I’ve found myself having quality chit-chats with whomever is on the television screen. It’s a rapt audience that never sasses back.

The other night BB and I were watching “Man Versus Wild” on Discovery Channel, and I pretty much had a running one-way conversation with the goofball host, Bear Grylls, who was surviving the wilds of a Vietnamese jungle.

“Here’s a deadly cobra,” Bear says, pointing out the hooded serpent slithering down a tree branch. “Their venom is highly poisonous, so you must NOT get near them!”

“Then why are you agitating it with a stick, you idiot?” I respond. "Leave it the $#@! alone!!"

But, oh, no, he keeps poking at it until it hisses and strikes, showing its tonsils and spitting all over the camera lens.

“Way to put your photographer in danger, Bear. That’s just dandy.”

Next, he moves on to a stream, plucks off some blood-sucking leeches, then nabs a catfish with his homemade spear. He beheads it, removes the guts, and takes a bite of the raw meat.

“It tastes as awful as it looks, but it can be the source of needed protein,” Bear announces before tossing the fish aside.

“Well, then cook it, Bear! You know how to make fire. Maybe your photographer is hungry.”

But it’s on to an old railroad tunnel, where Bear puts a hand into a hole and, magically, pulls out a bullfrog.

“Oh, this is a feast to behold in the wilds,” he says. “Just be sure that you don’t eat any red frogs. They can kill you.”

He proceeds to whack its head on a rock until it croaks, literally. Then, he takes one bite out of it, tosses it aside, and dashes off to meet the helicopter that is picking him up.

“You just wasted another meal! What’s wrong with you? You’re not killing these critters to survive. You’re just doing it to show off!”

Alas. Bear doesn’t listen to me, either. He’s just hanging on to a rope ladder, dangling from the belly of the helicopter, being whisked away from the jungle. Big Bore, mum the entire program up until now, finally opens his mouth. “He must have left the photographer behind,” he says.

“Yeah. He probably prefers the company of frogs and cobras.”

Tune in next week when Bear and I travel to Iceland without benefit of a hoodie hat or gloves.

“Zip up your coat, for god’s sake!”

He just won’t listen to me.