In this issue we bring you tales from two strange and faraway places.

The first story comes to us from down-under. The Richards family lives on a farm somewhere in Australia. About ten years ago, they found a kangaroo that had been killed by a car. In the pouch was a baby kangaroo, and because it was blind in one eye, the authorities let them keep it on the farm as a semi-pet. They named her Lulu, and let her roam freely about the farm. She grew up tame and friendly and liked being around the family. She was especially fond of Len Richards, the father, and would follow him around while tended to his chores. People joked that she thought she was a dog.

In September, after a severe late winter storm had blown through, Len went out to check for any damage to the farm. While he was looking around, a large branch fell from a tree and hit him on the head, knocking him out and causing a concussion. He had been lying unconscious on the ground for some time, when Lulu came hopping by and found him.

Sensing that something was amiss, she hopped over to the house and gave a performance of the “Timmy’s in the well” routine that would have made Lassie proud. She pounded on the door until someone came out, then made barking sounds, and hopped off trying to get them to follow. When they didn’t come along, she came back and did the same things again. This was totally out of character for her, and finally the family decided to follow her and see what she wanted. Len was taken to a hospital and will be fine, and Lulu is now a national folk hero in Australia. Maybe she will get her own TV show.

In another strange and faraway place, this one called Minnesota, where bears in the yard are apparently as common as squirrels, we find Kim Heil-Smith, a young wife and mother. Kim was home alone on a recent evening, talking to a friend on a cordless phone, when she remembered something she needed from the car. Still talking on the phone, she walked through the door into the attached garage and found herself face to face with a female bear and her cub. She had left the garage door open. Cornered, the bear attacked, and before Kim could get the door closed, the bear was on her, knocking her down in the entryway of the house and biting and scratching her on the head, shoulders and legs.

During the attack the phone was knocked from her hand and was lying on the floor, still connected. Knowing her friend could hear the sounds of the scuffle, and not wanting her to worry that something was wrong, like maybe she was being mugged by someone with a gun or something, Kim began yelling at the phone, “It’s only a bear, it’s only a bear’. Those must have been comforting words for her friend to hear; she probably breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that it was nothing serious.

During all this, Kim is lying on the floor with a bear chewing on her, and now the bear is starting to annoy her. Remember, these people up there are all descended from Viking warriors who probably battled bears on a regular basis. Kim describes what happened next.

“I was pretty scared at first, I wasn’t thinking. Then I just got mad at this bear being in my house. I finally was able to get my knee up so she couldn’t bite me, and then I just grabbed her nose and yelled, ‘Get out of my house!’  I think that must have startled her because that’s when she left.”

After the bear left, Kim called 911 and asked for paramedics to come by. When they arrived, Kim wouldn’t go to the hospital until she had finished cleaning up the blood on the floor. She didn’t want her husband and daughter to come home and see it and think that something bad had happened to her, when in fact, (all together now) “It was only a bear.”

Let’s see Arnold mess with this chick.