Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Moms Gone Wrong - The T&C Mothers Day 2024 Special

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Momma Larson joins the guys once again to share a few stories about how mothers, despite their best intentions, can lead their children to trouble. Then in a rare moment of expressing genuine feelings, the group then talks about their moms and how great they are. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So everybody and welcome to tooth and claw podcast, Mother's Day episode. We got our wildlife biologist, West Larson, and sole owner of a ball python. I do, yeah. Well, Jesse's kind of part owner. Majority owner. I'm majority owner of it. Okay. What would you say the split is?

Actually, yeah, I think your other statement, too, isn't totally right. We don't share all the other animals. The horses are Jesse. Yeah. Well, I was just saying that's the one that's pretty much yours. Yeah. If we were to break up, the one animal I'm ending up with is the snake. Yeah.

That's what it's trying to say. Yeah. Then we got our master diver, Mike, Smith. Oh, man. Yay, Mike. He's in full scuba gear right now. I thought you were in at, like, the high dive. I was like, I'm aspiring.

It'd be cool to do a gainer. Could you do that? Could you do a back flip into a flip off of it? diving board. So like a backwards gainer and then front change direction? I don't think I could do that. Can anyone do that?

I don't think anyone's capable of doing that. I didn't say gainer. Just like a die. Like a backflip die. Maybe those tumbling pittins? You said backflip into a flip. Like he changes direction. No, I said a black flip into a dive.

We're recording this. Oh, no. And you said back flip. Wait, was it a black flip? Or was it a black flip? It's going to be a long episode, if you correct. All my speech mistakes. because I am our koala brain, which means I'm a little slow.

Who else is Jeff? Jeff, I wish you wouldn't label yourself. Oh, well. We're adults. I love koalas. I don't think there's anything wrong with them being a little bit slow. Who else is here, Jeff? And we got our mother, Cindy Larson, who.

Back again. Back for the mother's day. It's the first paddleboarder in the world history. Is that true, mom? You were paddle boarding before. cool, right? Yeah. That is true.

We did by a windsurfer and we paddled with brooms. We did do that for a while. Yeah. Aren't there like cave paintings of Hawaiians doing it like a million years ago? Yeah. It's for sure not my mom. Yeah. But she did start it before it was cool.

The first white person maybe. Yeah. We would go to the river and, you know, people would be like, what's that? Yeah. What's that new fangled board that you're standing on? Exactly. Hey, it's good to have you here, Mom. Thanks.

Yeah. You had some stuff you wanted to say, right? Oh, yeah. Well, just to start out. Happy Mother's Day, by the way. Thank you. Yeah. So last year we were here, and I read from my journal a story about Jeff being so excited

about Mother's Day and just being like asking me when Mother's Day was going to be, I can't wait. And so we recorded actually early last year, kind of March or April, it was before Easter. and so I got this text from Jeff on Easter, and it said, happy Mother's Day. And I was so confused because I was like, what's he talking about? And then I thought, oh, he's starting Mother's Day early. How cute. Like he remembers the story, and he's starting Mother's Day early, and he's going to keep texting me. Happy Mother's Day.

Okay, wow. And then that wasn't true. Okay. He just said he'd been up in the mountains and he came home and he said, I knew it was a holiday. So I just thought, oh, maybe it's Mother's Day. So I just covered his face. I thought I had blown it. Pretty funny.

No. It was Easter, Jeff. Yeah, nothing really to do with Mother's. No. Mother Mary, maybe a little bit. Yeah, sure. Mike, I have a question for you. Shoot.

Did you do what I asked you to do? I almost certainly not. I don't remember what it was. You just assume he knows what you're talking about? Yeah, what did you ask him to do? Oh, we're checking notes. Do you know? He did not.

Play it again. I asked him to read Tarzan. Oh, yeah. And he never read Tarzan. Play it again, Mom. They even gave you the book. I know exactly where it is. How often do you read, Mike?

Every day. Okay. So don't you think it's just so little? It's not the book. I've been trying to get him to read the Simerillion. You got to wait till the time is right When you're like engaging with media Especially when someone recommends it

You want to be in the right frame of mind It's truly appreciated the way they wanted to talk about Tarzan On this episode Maybe next year all three of you could read it I still talk about Tarzan if you want Okay so anyways I've seen the movies I had some quotes from it

But I guess I won't bring them up Okay Anyways Wes did you do what I asked you to Yes You can play that he said yes No, you did not. Okay.

What was it? Putting your stuff away. You're setting us up. Oh, my stuff downstairs? Yeah. I put away some of it. Oh, that's very typical less. You should maybe do like a less loud buzzer.

And Jeff. What? Did you do what I asked you to? Probably not. We know, Jeff, right from the start. Oh, man. Because Jeff, when it comes to me, has a hearing problem. Oh, do I?

When were these? What did you ask? Jeff to do. There's just one out of a hundred. I didn't even know which one I should bring up. It doesn't feel fair. You can't even think of one? So I'm just starting them.

We're going to roast. I'm starting, no. You can't even name one with me. Okay. I'm starting the Mother's Day episode by just saying there's a reason that mothers aren't perfect. That their kids don't listen to them? Yeah.

Part of it is that. Part of it is that. We just have a hard life. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Blame it on us all you want. We can't argue with you right now because it's Mother's Day.

I wonder where I would be in life if I only ever listen to you. You're being like a little ball, like a plastic ball. I'd be married, like long married. Yeah. But probably divorced. She'd be like, I don't like her anymore. No, Jeff, you'd be married to a doctor and you'd be taking care of the kids. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Trust me. Well, we probably won't have a podcast. That's true. Good point. There you go. Okay, Wes, you can, I'm going to turn it over to you. You're going to turn it over to me.

Okay. Well, so this year, we let my mom decide what she wants to do for the Mother's Day episode. Last year we did the yellow jackets. I don't even. I think so. I think the year before we did like the nice animals where we got real anthropomorphic. The year before we did Cindy Perilyn, the mountain lion. mom on the horse drive i think that was in yeah so this year we're going to do something new we have

collected a number of toothy tales from our our listeners and some of them feature mops and so my mom has been nice enough to help us with our emails a bit and she reads a lot of the tooth and claw mailbag at gmail dot com if you have any animal stories you want to contribute yep and mom you'll read them i read them do you respond to everyone yeah it says i'm Jeff, but I always tell everyone I'm not you. Always? Yes, always. Yeah, I have, you can be me.

I have strict instructions from Wes that I can't, I can't answer for him. And so I always just come out right with, this is Cindy. I don't answer for any of you guys. If you want to answer for me, just make sure you misspell a couple words and make it convincing. Thanks, Jeff. Anyway, she has been going through those and has filtered out some ones that she wanted to use for this episode, plus one from the news. So the title of this episode and of the theme is Mom's Gone Wrong. I do think some of these moms are more of just like, they didn't necessarily go wrong,

but they were kind of put in a really tricky position and they did their best. An alternate title could be Mom's Gone Wild. I like that one of the show that Jeff used to watch late at night when Mom and Dad had gone to sleep. I think, though, if moms just admit that they are sometimes wrong, it's better. because then the kids can accept that too. Like, oh, I'm sometimes wrong. Yeah. So what were you wrong with that?

Ooh, nothing. Some of these you send me, though, I do. I think I disagree a little bit on whether or not the mom was wrong. Oh, okay. Especially the one from the news. So we're going to get into that one first. Okay. So this happened in July 2016, and there's an adult woman with her young child,

her husband, and her mother. So we've got three generations together. in a car, and they were driving through a safari park in Beijing, China. And this is a popular tourist attraction in the area. Visitors could see somewhat free roaming animals as they drove through large enclosures. And the primary rule in this park is that you cannot leave your vehicle under any circumstances, and you have to keep your windows up. And just to explain, like, if you've ever done one of these drive-through safari parks, often there's little fences or enclosures, but it's much less than you would see in like a zoo.

It's more just kind of to keep the animals from moving around, but if an animal really determined, it can get through these fences often. So on that particular day, this woman, Zhau Jing, decided to break that rule in one of the most dangerous parts of the park, the tiger enclosure. Reportedly, she was feeling a bit car sick, and in the video you can see her open her door, and she walks over to the driver's side of the car. The husband then opens his door, but he's kind of stuptory.

driving, it's weird. It seems like they're maybe arguing about something, and you see a large tiger come up behind her and grab her and drag her off camera. And this is all caught. What? On video. This is a video you can access right now. Yeah.

I saw it on Instagram. Holy cow. It's crazy, too, because there's multiple cars in this line. There's like someone right behind them witnessing this whole thing, too. So it drags her off camera, and the husband immediately bolts out of the car to help. Wow. And then maybe a second or two later, you see the back driver's side door open. And the mom, her mom, the grandma, also bolts out to go help.

And what ends up happening? And you also see a Jeep approach that's like a ranger in the park. Yeah, it was amazing how fast that Jeep came out there. Yeah, he was right there. Yeah. Or he or she, they. And then Jing was severely mauled by the tiger. So the woman that initially was grabbed by it.

But her mother was actually killed. The grandma was killed by the tiger or tiger. There was a ton of internet backlash right after this happened. A lot of people telling her she should have just listened to the rules. She should have obeyed the rules. And people also claiming that they were in a fight. Her and her husband were in a fight. And that was the reason that she'd left the car.

And there was even reports that I saw that said for her, the backlash was almost as bad as the mauling, just because it was so intense. She was like, I'd rather be outside with the tigers than be in this car for one more second with you. She was like, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I was trying to call her bluff. I went back in the car.

Anyway, I do think, as far as internet backlash on this one, like, she was mauled by a tiger and she lost her mom. Like, she was punished plenty. She definitely didn't need people telling her that was dumb to leave your car. Yeah. So honestly, like... The internet's great for letting people know, like, hey, you shouldn't have left your car there. Yeah.

Yeah, she knows. Before we get into the, why this mom, why you include this one and mom's gone wrong, People might ask why this tiger would immediately attack someone. Because you would think like, oh, it's a zoo, this is a tiger that's used to seeing people. Why did it suddenly go for this woman? What do you guys think? Do you guys have a theory? I've got an answer for this.

I mean, I think we know that just because it's a zoo animal, that doesn't mean it's going to be tained. Right. Like when people go into zoo enclosures, they often get attacked. Yeah. But it just seems crazy that the one time someone leaves their vehicle, they immediately. We don't know that that's the case. Good point. You've spoken a lot before about how especially zoo animals are so starving for new stimulus.

Exactly. Any novel experience has them curious enough to go investigate. So I think it's even more so in a situation like this, because they're not seeing people at their enclosure every day doing different things. All this animal see is cars passing day after day after day. So when something finally happens that's different, you know, someone's. stepping out of their car. For them, that is a completely new stimulus. That's something that they've been maybe waiting for, you know, or whatever.

And it's so incredibly interesting and novel to an animal that just has to see the same thing every single day. But it's really no surprise to me that it immediately investigated. And for a tiger to investigate something like that, it might be an attack. In this case, it was. And that's probably why she wasn't killed right away, right? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it must have killed the other woman pretty quickly.

Because those rangers responded right away. I think it was more than one tiger too. I think you're probably right. It just shows one tiger in the video, but it's likely it was multiple tigers. So mom, you included this story and mom's gone wrong. Right. Not because of the mom, but because of the grandma. Because I would be upset if my mom was with my child and got out of the car and left my child in the park alone.

because so there's no way the the grandma could have ensured that the child didn't get out of the car too. Yeah. We don't really have many details on the child though. They could have, for all we know, they were like strapped into a car seat or something. Guess what? My grandkids get out of their car seats. I just feel like, no, I feel like I would want, if I was the mom, even though I was attacked by the tiger, and I'd be like, my mom can't do anything. But she did.

She saved her. It seems like. No, she didn't. Yeah, she ended up dying. the woman survived. The tigers change their focus. They changed their focus to the grandma. No, I think that was a new tiger that got the grandma.

I don't know. I don't know, guys. I just think. I think there are a lot of assumptions. There are here right now. We can't say anything for sure. The bottom line is, bottom line is you want your child safe. And you, that's coming, you are a mother.

I am. You have a perspective that we don't. Yeah. I'm not going to say. Even having my. It depends how old of a mother you are too. Even having my husband get out, I mean, that would have. have been iffy just because don't leave the child.

I thought the child was nine, too. I don't think I read anywhere where they said how old the child was, but I tend to think the child was safe in the car. That's just how I feel. You can't predict behavior. Wes, you probably would have gotten out of the car. Yeah, but I would have loved to get killed by a tiger. If you're a younger mother, you can still have a lot more kids and don't worry about it.

But if you're like a older mother. Residual reproductive person, that's it. Oh, please. All right. So we'll move on from that one. But I do think it was an interesting story. Personally, I was like a little touched that both her husband and her mom. Yes.

Yeah. Immediately left the car. There wasn't any hesitation on either their part. Which is really scary. I mean, it would be scary. This is a massive Amor tiger. It's a big animal. And they both immediately left their car to go try and save her.

And for me, that takes a lot of courage. So whether or not, you know, they should have stayed with the kid, we can debate, you know. But like, ultimately her mom gave her. life to try and save her. So it is pretty impressive. So, Mom. Yes. Cyrus, our Mean West is older, brother, you're first born.

She knows who that is, too. The listeners, if he got, like, attacked by a grizzly bear pulled out from beside the car, you would just stay with his kids and watch him get eaten. Well, I would have my bear spray, so I would have a chance. Good answer. That is a good thought. Okay. This episode is brought to you by Netflix.

Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavyweight in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lins. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific time. All right. So now we have a couple of toothy tales to get into about mom's gone wrong. And the first two are from our listener, Emily. So the first one I'm just going to kind of paraphrase a bit because I want to make sure we have some time for some of our longer stories. But Emily's first story was about how she was in knee-deep water in Galveston with her mom. Galveston? Yeah. Do you know Galveston? It's been in the news. Charles Barkley has been making a lot of fun of Galveston.

Oh, really is. Yeah. So the New Orleans Pelicans just lost the first round in the playoffs. Yeah. And his joke's always at like one, two, three, Cancun. Yeah. And he's like, Cancun's too nice for these guys. They got to go to Galveston, Texas. America's Cancun.

Anyway, she was in this water in Galveston with her mom when suddenly her mom screamed and fell. No, no, it wasn't her mom. Oh, you're right. It was the mom of her friends that was in there. You're right. Very important. And the mom suddenly screamed and fell and knocked off. knocked her off the raft and she thought the mom was being attacked by a shark and like she was next.

So she was screaming and everyone came running and her mom grabbed her and pulled her out of the water. And this other mom had a six inch long stingray spine embedded in her foot. And it was completely going through her Achilles tendon and the backside of her ankle. What? Yeah. Man, I'd rather have a shark bite me. Yeah. So it's kind of like honestly I might too.

Like that's really scary. Yeah. So it traumatized her and it was nice that her mom rushed in and helped her. I was glad her mom was there. You know, we call that in the wildlife biz. What? A stever. Yeah, I guess.

Still feels too soon even though it was a long time ago. All right. The second one is about a tick and I'm just going to do a little trigger warning for this. It involves some sensitive parts of the male anatomy. So if you need to skip this one, go ahead. If not, the ego. Penis? Yeah, we're talking peens.

So Emily said that her and her family were visiting extended family in San Angelo, Texas, and they spent a lot of time hiking and camping. She was about nine and her older brother was 12, and they'd gotten back to their great-uncle's house. They're getting ready for bed when her brother started screaming from the bathroom. She said her mom flew up the stairs and tried to get into the bathroom, but he had the door locked and he just kept screaming, It's going to eat my penis.

And her mom was freaking out because she had no idea what was going on. Yeah. And the brother was just screaming, it's going to eat my penis. I don't know. Like, I'd be scared for him, but I'd also be like a little confused, like, a little too confused to be completely afraid. Is possibly going to. Mom, if we're screaming that behind a locked door, what do you think is in there with us? I have no clue.

Well, I don't. I would think if you were saying it's going to take, you know, eat your. penis then um i would think maybe a snake or a worm or something a worm wow it's either a huge my mind my mind wouldn't have gone to what it was she was just like only could think of snakes and then worms are kind of the same shape as a snake well i've heard the kind of you know aren't there oh you're thinking yeah mom asked me with the Borneo trip if i would swim because of those Animals.

They go up. Yeah, you don't need to worry about that. Mom's always worried. Or you thought I was going to need to get a shot for it or something. Well, I just wanted to scare you so you'd get your shots. Anyway, turns out that her brother did have a tick on his penis, and he didn't want his mom to see him naked, but he also didn't know what to do. That's a little different than our house. Yeah, I don't think we would have cared too much.

It's going to be a weird comment for people to hear. Yeah, that is. Sorry. After some interesting conversation through the door, he was able to locate tweezers and get it off. She says, definitely not a scary story, just me and my sister giggling nonstop in the bedroom, while my brother was locked in the bathroom terrified of losing his penis to a tick. We still joke with him about it 30 years later. That would be a funny story.

Yeah, I would. Yeah. I found a tick. on my wiener in Brazil. And it was fully engorged and it was pretty gross. Yeah. Do you freak out? I was a little nervous.

I was just in the shower washing and I felt like a big lump and I was like, oh, that doesn't feel right. And then I looked down and it was like probably the size of like a gumball almost. Wow. Yeah, it was massive. And I just pulled it. I just ripped it off. That's huge.

It was big. A gumball? It was really big. Yeah, maybe a little smaller than your average gumball. Like a small gumball? Yeah. Like a tiny gumball. Like a lemon head.

Okay. Yeah. You keep using things that are edible. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird. I don't know about that. Okay. Paints a vivid image.

Yeah, let's just, we'll just move on. So this next one is from listener Olivia. And Olivia says, I have a story you might be interested in. And it's about a bear. So we're already interested. I grew up in Skolwalmi, Mount Baker, National Forest area. And one night when I was a kid, my sister brother and I were playing at our neighbor's house.

I was 10 at this time. and my siblings are both younger. It got dark and it was time to go back home, about a quarter mile walk from our neighbor's house. I stepped outside and I immediately was overcome with a sense of fear, which we've all felt that. And usually I think you just kind of brush it off and say, oh, I'm just freaking myself out.

But Olivia said, I asked my neighbor's mom to drive us the short distance to our house instead of returning in the dark. And I'm so glad I made that choice for not only myself, but also my siblings. When we reversed in the car, the light shone on a mother black bear with two cubs. Whoa. They were only 10 to 15 feet away from our neighbor's house and even less when we were loading into the car.

So Olivia says, I wanted to ask what you guys thought. So here's my question. We usually ran home from our neighbor's house because we were scared of the dark. If we had run home that night like we always did, might the bear have chased us? Would its prey drive have been activated seeing three small children running away? I think we got really lucky that night, and I'm glad my childhood self-listened to her. Love the podcast. Thanks, Olivia.

What do you guys think? Yeah, it seems, well, you just said, too, that black bears will seldomly cub defend, but it's not like an impossibility. And also just running predators, never a good sign, it's dark, they're little, you know? Yeah. Could have happened.

That's where I meant. It could have happened. I would say, it probably would have ran away. 99 times out of 100, this bear doesn't mess with them. But it's possible. It's good she trusts her gut. I was glad she did.

I actually think it's good to trust your gut and listen to your fear a little bit, especially if it's not something you're usually afraid of. Yeah. My gut. I don't know. I can't trust it all the time. I remember in like elementary school, I was riding the bus home and there's this huge lightning storm right over us. And I got really scared.

And I was like, bus is a bad idea. It's a big metal bus. Yeah. So I got out of the bus way far away from home and just walked home through the lightning start. That wasn't the best idea. When you say black bears don't typically cub defend, what does that look like? Do they just not, are they not bothered by outside threats or do they run away or what?

What it usually is is they just know that their cubs will get up a tree. So they don't feel like they have to defend their cubs because the cubs just go up a tree. And that's usually what happens. So they just tend to run away and their cubs go up a tree. I don't think this bear would have felt a big threat from three kids that are less than 10 years old. I think it probably would just run away. And also, like, typically it's not female bears with cubs that act predatory against humans. It's usually like sub-adult males or solitary males.

It's very rarely females with cubs. So I do think is very, very slim chance that this bear would have messed with them at all. But it is possible. Yeah. So it's better to not take the chance. You got to trust your gut. Yeah. Yeah.

Except you, Jeff. Except for Jack. No gut trust. The mom and the story did not go wrong because she actually, you know, it's only a quarter mile away. But she actually drove the kids home, which I give her lots of credit for. Yeah. I got to say, not of these stories are kind of disappointing me. They're not bad moms.

They seem like pretty good. I'm waiting for the mom that just kills their kids. We got our last mom. We got a bad. Yeah, we got one. Strap up. Don't worry. We got two more.

They're actually also Black Bear stories. This one's from Amy. Amy said growing up, we'd visit the Trinity Alps in northern California each summer, and during that time we would frequently see black bears. Once when we were camping, I was about six or seven, and my younger twin siblings were one or two. Next to the campsite was a cute little stream separating the site from a trail and a hill going into the woods. Our older sister, who was 14 or 15, was in charge of watching the twins, which remember were one or two, while our parents did chores around the campsite. All of a sudden our mom screamed because she saw the twins following a mama black bear and two cubs

walking on the other side of the stream along the trail. Just like a couple of ducks. Yeah, which is cute. They were only about 50 yards from our sight and the twins were less than a yard from the bears, which is pretty close. Yeah. For like a one or two year old kid. Thankfully, my parents were able to retrieve them without any issues,

but our sister has never been able to live it down that she was frozen to the chair, staring in fear at what was happening, which is why she did not react. I like to say the twins wanted to become her new adopted cubs, but ultimately I'm so glad nothing more terrifying happened besides a good campfire story. I think that mom's a bad mom because those kids could have been adopted by those bears

and had a really interesting life. Instead, they probably just grew up to be like, we don't say bad that we say, mom's gone wrong. Yeah, mom's gone wild. She went wrong. Yeah. When your mom with little kids, do have to know who to trust with your kids too.

Would you trust a black bear with cubs with your kids? I wouldn't, but maybe your teenager too. Yeah. You got to know how involved they are. Mom trusted us with some pretty shady teenagers. Yeah. I loved babysitting when I was growing up, and so I just didn't even clue in that. I don't think I don't remember that at all.

Yeah, Jeff got really good one. What a babysitter? Like a bear butt? I can't remember. I think Wes dreamed that. I didn't dream that. Because he never told us. That's crazy.

And he usually told us everything. Well, maybe she told me not to tell you. I don't know. You ever think about that? I don't know. I got a lot to think of it. Jeff had a crush on his babysitters. I did.

One of them took us swimming in the ponds too and we weren't supposed to swim. No, that one. I almost had a heart attack when I found out. Anyway. Yeah. So anyways, yeah. I didn't do perfect. No, it's okay.

All right. This is our longest story. So do you guys have anything you want to interject before that? When I was a teenager, I babysat once and the girl was autistic and she just like, as soon as her parents

left, she got naked and I had no idea what to do. That's really funny. And I just felt so uncomfortable. I think that's probably why I didn't babysit anymore after that. We used to beg and beg for them to get you to babysit. Then they finally did.

I don't think that's true. No, it is true. I beg them to let me babysit yes. Oh, you wanted to babysit really bad. That might be true. You did. Okay. Okay.

All right. Settled. Hadaday presents. In the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated weed whacker guy. Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere. And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Hannity. Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of his. histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes.

And the winner by knockout is Padiday. Paradig. Bring it on. All right. So on to our longest story. This is a good one that has a lot of twists and turns. And it was one of our earlier toothy tales that we collected. And it's one we've kind of been saving. This is from Nin. And again, it's going to take a little bit, just buckle in.

Mom is playing footsie with me under the table right now. Way over on my... side. I'm not at all. I don't even see how you guys could reach each other. You have short leg. You're slouching hard to get to where I'm at. I need my footrest. You're fine. Mom's gone wrong. Okay. So Nin says, hello, I've been enjoying your podcast for a while now. I can't afford to travel and these days my interaction with the wild is limited to warning people with unleashed dogs about the urban coyote pack. But I grew up in Arkansas where there's a decent amount of black bears. I thought you guys, especially West, might enjoy or cringe throughout

reading about my experiences with them. For the first 13 years of my life, I lived at the end of a dirt road branching off another dirt road, at least two miles from the nearest neighbor. You'd think that an upbringing like that would result in detailed knowledge of the wilderness, but no, I was raised by a mother who loved nature with an unthinking, uncritical fondness that allowed her to ignore every single red flag that ever flapped on the breeze. We were encouraged to eat random mushrooms and plants to roam far and wide without supervision and treat every animal as a friend we had yet to make. Looking back, I'm often surprised that any of her children were fortunate enough to survive our childhood, especially once the bears started showing up. Wow.

So she kind of goes on about why these bears, I'm going to paraphrase a little bit of this because it is a long story, but she talks about how they fed their dogs from a large bowl on their porch, and the bears started raiding that dog food bowl. And then her mom also had to, had a big compost heap that they would just throw rotten food on. And the bears were obviously getting into that too. Yeah. So there's a lot of human food for these bears. And her mom left it there purposely for the bears, though.

Yeah, she was just like that. Yeah, it wasn't just for the dogs. Like, she was feeding the bears. It's like she knew the bears were going to eat it. Or other animals. Yeah. It was just kind of like, whatever, the animals will take care of it. And Nin says, in short, we could not have created a better bear lure if we

tried. And she says it started charmingly enough. The earliest I remember is when we glimpsed a black bear feeding from the pile of rotting food every once in a while. It would always run away when we were close. Then there was a mother bear with cubs on the edge of the woods that surrounded us, sitting up and glaring warily as my mother sweetly assured the bear, she meant no harm, as both sets of children eyed their parents dubiously. Sometimes the dogs would bark as a bear came up to eat their food and we put the bowl away right the next night or two until we forgot. I cannot remember a time when bears were not around, but their presence in our life was so normalized that it was simply a fact of life.

I can also not remember a time when I was not very, very convinced that bears were not a good thing to have around the house. I also don't remember when I started researching ways to escape or fight them. This was long before the Internet was a thing in the backwoods of Arkansas. So the only sources I had were Jack London and Tarzan books. Tadda! There you go. Do you have a sound effect for that?

For my... She did it. Yeah. Tada! Yeah, good point. And any adult who'd stand still long enough for me to ask how a kid under 10 could defeat a bear. I got plenty of conflicting advice. Stay very still and don't move.

Climb a tree. Drop and play dead. Speak calmly to the bear. Yell at the top of my lungs. Run home as fast as I can. Call for the dogs or shoot it in the head because that was the only way to kill it before it killed you. She says her mother did not believe in guns and she was too near-sighted to see beyond the end of her. because her mother also didn't believe in glasses.

So, yeah, so she definitely couldn't have shot the bear. So she says she was about nine or ten when things took a turn. A large brown-ferred bear started regularly feeding from the compost heat, and it wouldn't leave when it saw them. So her mother sent her out at dark to get the scraps bucket, and she heard something heavy moving in the woods. She threw the bucket down and tried really hard not to run all the way back to the house, while loudly assuring the bear that the rotting food would taste,

much nicer than she would. So that was like a really, that was like a memory that stuck with her because it was like one of the first times that a bear really scared her. It got more and more intense. There's a part where the bear like was right next to the door and her and her siblings like barricaded the door

because they were worried the bear was going to come in. And then her mom got home and she just laughed at them for being afraid of the bears. And she said after all, the bear's probably more afraid of you than you are of it. So now I'm going to go back into her account. Finally, the bear did something so terrible Even my mother couldn't ignore it.

One day we came home from school to find the bear in the kitchen Eating the pot roast my mother had set out Before she left to pick us up from the bus stop. I yelled, my siblings yelled, And we all piled into the car and screamed for our mother to drive away. She didn't, but she did roll down her window and scream at the bear to go away. Eventually it ambled out the open front doors sniffed around the car and left. When our dogs came back, she was angry at them for running away from the bear, even though that was what they'd been doing this whole time.

The loss of her pot roast was too much for even my mother to ignore entirely, so after that she acquired a few deterrence. The first was an air horn. The first and last time we tried it, the bear did indeed go running, but the mechanism jammed and the horn couldn't be turned off. My mother was as disturbed by the sound as the bear, and she drove us into town until she was sure the pressure had run out. She refused to ever buy another one. Next, we tried fireworks, which sounds fun. Yeah. This is actually one of my favorite childhood memories.

My mother woke me up and had me light and throw a string of black cat fireworks out the bathroom window at the bear as it was eating our dog's food on the front porch. She'd come around on glasses by then. That's nice. Oh, that's great. So I was able to watch as the bear ran for it, and for a while I relished the victory. But my mother declined to purchase more because she was afraid one of us would use them for fun without her supervision. That encounter took place in the fall,

and she reasoned that the bear would sleep for the winter and forget about us. Besides, she said, since it was brown, it was actually a grizzly bear, and would soon migrate back north. It couldn't be a black bear, she said. Black bears are nice. What do you guys think?

Was this brown bear in Arkansas, a grizzly bear? It was not. It would be a long migration. It's a very long migration. Yes. And they don't migrate. Just like a bird. Yeah.

Since all I knew about grizzlies was that they were more dangerous than black bears, I was pretty sure black bears were dangerous enough already. This didn't reassure me. This bear had started to become a kind of boogeyman to me. It was no longer a chance danger like a car crash or a rattlesnake. I was pretty sure it was going to kill at least one of us at some point, and I couldn't think of a way to prevent it. My mother anthropomorphized its actions a lot from trying to make friends before it ate her roast and ungrateful afterwards. And I was young enough to believe that. I started to think of this bear as something evil and cunning, which is pretty scary. Like if you think about it, we all, I was scared of like boogeymen and stuff when I was a kid,

but if your boogeyman is real and you can see it out your window and like hear it at night, that would be pretty terrifying. She also said they didn't have any locks on the house. Right. Like there were no locks. You could just push the doors open. Yeah. So what? They were barricading it. Yeah. Like they just like put themselves against the door. to make sure the bear can just push the door open. We'll get to it. Like they start just coming in the house. Yeah.

But pretty much I was just thinking of the fact that I was scared of things that go bump in the night when I was a kid. But I knew that my parents were like on my side for the most part, aside from the one time dad scared me about vampires. But to know, to have that kind of fear and then also feel as though your parents aren't protecting you would be terrifying. Yeah. Sure. After winter, the bear came back and things just kept. getting worse. I kind of lose track of the order in which things happened because they became so routine. There are usual feedings from the dog bowl and compost heat. The times we had to stay in the

car until the bear was satisfied that it had raided our house of all the easily available food, the time it started climbing up the stairs of the back porch one day when we were all eating lunch outside, and we threw food down at it and barricaded ourselves inside the bathroom. My mother was content with the state of affairs until the morning when the bear casually pushed us. opened the front doors, walked into our kitchen while she was frying bacon for breakfast. She screamed and fled upstairs waking us children. The bear was trying to climb the stairs toward us when I came out of our room. And we all climbed a ladder into the attic and crouched on the beams as the day got hotter. Oh my gosh. Even my mother decided that was enough.

At first she just asked some of the people she knew to sit outside with guns at night because her beliefs had shifted enough that she was willing to allow guns as an appropriate response to a grizzly bear that had walked into the house while she was there, but eventually someone with a milligram of sense persuaded her to call the Forest Service. Now we need this sound, do-do-do-do-do, like the... Like a hero? Yeah, a hero stone. You did it.

You nailed it. I thought the Forest Service had a theme song I didn't know about it. It goes like this. Do-do-to-do-do! Got it. I don't know if the people who came are rangers or bear biologists or from fishing game, so I'll just call them the bear catchers. They're very kind of squinty, awkward kid who offered to help them kill the grizzly bear

just so she could learn how to do it herself. Oh, wow. First they explained that it was just a black bear, just a black bear, that had happened to be brown. Then they told me what I should do if I ever met a bear. Make myself look tall and make as much noise as possible until the bear went away or someone came to help me. Just great advice. on no account was I to then sneak up or charge at the bear with the sharpened sticks I had started keeping prepared under the front porch. They explained that bears were not evil, but that this one had become so used to eating our food that they had to take it away before someone got hurt.

They were the first adults I had ever met who didn't seem to regard bears as either charmingly oversized chipmunks or certain death, just animals to be dealt with on certain terms. They were calm and matter-of-fact about everything, and attitude I countered so. so rarely that impressed me very much. They were around our house for about a week. They didn't talk to me very much because I was a kid and they had a job to do. But I remember them coming back to tell my mother they had tagged the bear and were going to move it somewhere far away. I think this was the bear catcher version of saying Rover had gone to live on a nice farm far away. Because my mother changed her mind again and became really, really insistent that the bear not be killed.

She asked if she could have one of their tranquilizers for next time, which they won't get bad. people. We won't give people those. Instead, what they gave her was advice on how to prevent more bears from being drawn to our house. Not leaving rotting food outside and inviting heap was at the top of the list.

And for a while, she even followed it. That was not the last encounter we had with bears, but none of the other were as intense or prolonged. We didn't have any more bear problems until we started keeping some ducks and chickens a few years later. Once, a different bear started walking towards my younger sister while she was playing in the sandbox.

outside. My two other siblings grabbed pots and pans and ran outside banging them together to scare it off. I only realized what was happening when I went out to see what the noise was. That bear never came back. When I was 13 and living in the barn, long story, I started waking up to see a bear

sniffing around the doors in the morning, but luckily the house burnt down not long afterward. Another long story. Wow. And no, I didn't burn down the house to escape another set of bear encounters. I didn't think she did. And they moved into town. I haven't seen a bear since, the one decided to go through the Sonic Drive-thru and visit the campus of my college town while I was enrolled.

Wow. This is probably too long and probably sounds pretty unbelievable. No, this is amazing. I have lots of childhood stories like that. I might remember some of the situations being more dangerous than they actually were because I was so young, but I think the fact that bear was treating our house like a walk-in pantry is frightening enough. Definitely. If like me, you've come to the conclusion that the most dangerous creature in this story was my mother,

I can reassure you that I don't encounter her anymore either. But I guess what I mostly want to tell you the story is because I think what you do with your podcast is important. Whoever those bear catchers were, they were the first adults who both validated in my fears and made me less fearful by explaining why all this was happening and what to do about it. I grew up to have a healthy respect for the bears

instead of being desperately afraid of them because I got accurate information and practical advice from some experts who took the time to explain things to me. And I think that's always a good thing to do. So thanks. If you ever meet a bear catcher with the story about a crazy lady in the Ozarks who wanted to buy their tranquilizer back in the 90s, please pass that on. Really good story. Thank you.

Incredible. Yeah. And honestly, I do think this is a mom gone wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty clearly say that. Yeah. I think even the listener writing us.

What was her name? Ninn. Ninn. Yeah. Yeah. That was really well written. Yeah. It was.

Nothing. No interjections. Nothing to add. We just wanted to let that the story. Story cook. Yeah. Really cool. Cool.

I thought it was really nice of her to send it in to. Yeah. To share it like that. Mm-hmm. I wonder what the mom would have done like with the tranquilized bear. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's asleep now.

Yeah. It's like that joke or quote of like the dog chasing the car. Yeah. Like what's it do once it gets it? She probably would have tucked it into one of their beds. She probably woke up and left. Yeah. Anyway, all right, so that is it for our toothy tails.

Why didn't you raise us like that, Mom? Yeah, I would have loved that. I do remember once a skunk got into our garbage out your guys's window and dad woke me up and brought me to the window so I could see the skunk eating in the garbage. And that was a fun core memory for me. Of course we did. And I remember driving to Canada and the first bear I ever saw was on the side of the road. And I was asleep and you guys woke us up to see the bear. Yeah, which was fun.

I had some, well, we had someone right in and she saw a bear and was really excited. It was a desert bear in Texas. Uh-huh. But she says, it was Mark, but she says, thanks to Wes, I regularly play with my bear spray on hikes, grabbing and taking off the safety. At no point in this sighting did I get nervous or feel I had to use bear spray, but I still found myself mindlessly grabbed my spray moments after spotting the bear. I definitely did not have this instinct muscle memory even a year ago.

And it's all because of Wes encouraging folks to get more comfortable handling bear spray. So anyways, I thought that was a big thank you to you too. That's nice. Being educated is so important. And moms can do that for their kids. Totally. It's like the three of us are moms now. The listeners are a kid.

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Mom, you got one more little story for us? Well, I wanted to bring up, this goes with the theme a little bit. First off, I wanted to ask you guys, you know that one boy that the parents paid for him to go into the shark tank? And then the shark actually bit him. Yeah, in the Bahamas. In the Bahamas? Yeah. So it was a big shark tank and people could go in.

He wasn't the only one in there, but the shark, the shark bit him and it went for him. And so he was bleeding and he swam up to the surface. So I wanted to ask you, my first thing was, would I have let my child go in the shark tank? What do you guys think? Like, he was around 9 or 11? I think I would have begged you so hard. I know, I know. You would have said no.

I don't think I would have said no. No, I think I would have said no. Huh. If there's like other kids doing it and stuff? Unless your dad weren't with you, I think I would have said no. Yeah. If one of the parents had been with you, I think I would. Would you let us go?

on the show Shark Tank to face those billionaires? Yes. I'd rather face the sharks. Me too. My mom for sure would have let us go. Really? It's totally in our bag, yeah. I don't think I would have ever forgiven you if you wouldn't have let me go on.

Yeah? Yeah. Well, it would have cost a lot. It probably cost a lot. And we didn't spend a lot of money like that. You didn't. They were pretty tight with money back then. And especially.

We bought you kids at Nintendo. Why do we need to buy you another Nintendo? That's what they'd say. Yeah. Yeah. They got a point. Two Nintendo's? You had your own ability to try and make money.

When I was like six. Child laid a loss. Well, you did sell rocks. Yeah, you sold rocks like a street. Dollar from one girl who fell back. And then when you'd ask mom and dad for money, they'd say, well, where'd all your rock money go? Okay. And then what about the one I do remember is SeaWorld.

I remember they used to have the orca come and kiss. Yeah. somebody and they would hold on to the person and then the orca would jump up and like either lick them or give him a kiss. Yeah. And I remember sitting there thinking, would I let one of the boys do that? Yeah. And I don't think I would have.

That one I wouldn't cared about as much. I think I would have liked it at the time, but I would have looked back on that a lot in like a different light. Yeah. But sharks would have, getting a no on the shark thing would have been hard for me. So it's really hard to know, like as a parent, especially. what to say yes to because I don't feel like we held you back. I don't feel like we held you back. No, just emotionally. Just emotionally. Okay. Whatever. Let's not get in. We don't want to get into that.

So anyways, I have this story from my friend Katie and you might not get, well, it talks about the dad instead of the mom, but you might not get why this relates, but I'll get to it. So they were going from Maryland to Orlando for Disney trip, and she said to break up the drive, my dad decided to pull over at one of the most backwoods gator farms you can imagine. There were rickety bridges over overcrowded ponds of gator. Then randomly there was a cage of monkeys you could feed with some food. You could buy it at the bubble gum machine. My mom and sister were happily feeding the friendly brown monkeys with the giant smiles. I, however, decided I wanted to feed the grumpy-looking white monkeys.

with the red face that was sitting back a bit. I thought, poor guy doesn't get fed because he looks grumpy, but I can fix that. So I shove my hand as far back as I could reach, and suddenly he grabbed my hand and started yanking it back and forth slamming my four-year-old body against the fence over and over. I was screaming.

My mom and sister were screaming, and my dad, who was across a couple of bridges, too far away to react directly, with SEAL Team 6 precision picked up a rock, and threw it at the monkey. The rock flew through the fence and knocked the monkey square between the eyes, making it release my hand. No way.

I was relieved and shocked in awe of my dad, who was, in fact, a Navy SEAL, but I'm pretty sure they don't teach rock throwing skills. So anyways, Katie and I became friends. We're friends now, and we email back and forth, but that's not the point. The point is her dad took her to the gator place, and you're totally against that. Right? It depends. Some of them are okay.

Like some of them are rescued nuisance gators, but this one doesn't sound great. I would have 100% taken you guys to that. All right, we can move on. Okay. For the back half of this episode, now that we've told some stories, we got to talk a bit about some of the toothy tales, some stuff from the news. Thanks for writing in. Those were great.

Yeah, that was great. Thank you. And please don't stop. And Jeff, what's that email address again? Uh, tooth and claw mailbag at gmail.com. Perfect. So send us your stories. We'll use some of them.

Some of them we won't, but you'll probably get a response from my mom regardless. Yeah. Signed Jeff. Yeah, exactly. All right. So for the second half, we have some questions for both my mom and for Mike, because we'd love to talk about your mom a little bit too, Mike. But let's start with old Cindy Larson.

Jeff, you came up with most of these questions. Yeah, you want me to go through them? Take a wheel. Sure. I added a couple. So you do yours and then I'll throw in one or two. Well, first, I had one that I blacked out so that it'd be a surprise. Uh-huh.

So let me bring it up. Yeah, that's the response I'm looking for. Okay. Did you know Wes was invited on to Naked and Afraid and Are You the One? I knew he was invited on Naked and Afraid. Not, I didn't know about Are You the One? Like the dating show? No, I do think I.

I thought they had just talked to him about it, though. Their casting manager reached out, but I was like 33 at the time. Uh-huh. And she was like, hey, we'd love to have you on the show. And I said, I'm 33. And that was too old? Okay, okay, yeah. Do you think he'd be good on reality TV competition?

Yeah, I do. I think, yeah, he's good at the camera talk. Who did you want to replace the Jeopardy host once Trebek died? Aaron Rogers. Oh, he was the guest. He was the best. Yeah. I didn't even know who he was then.

Like, I didn't know. Yeah. Because I don't know football. And I was just like, who is that? And your dad was laughing. Mom's really into psychedelics, too. She took I-A-Losco with Roger's stuff. He did a really great job just so you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much he actually cares about facts, though, just so you know. Well, he didn't. When he read the facts, he didn't, like, read the answers. He knew the answer. I mean. Oh, he knew them?

Yeah. All right. So what are your favorite reality TV shows and moments? Like, what are your, because we all like reality TV shows except Mike. But, like, what are your top three favorites and what are some of the moments that stick out to you? Okay. So my top two favorites are Survivor and the Challenge. And I really love both of those a lot.

Yeah. But the one that stuck out to me is actually the amazing race this time because there was a couple on it. Spoilers ahead. There was a couple on there. Well, there was a mom and a son, and the son's pretty nice to the mom. Although sometimes he talks down to her a little bit. But the mom's pretty smart. Like, I think she's really smart.

And so anyways, she couldn't get this one thing. And I think they were going to lose because of it. And there was another girl who was pretty young. And she just started crying. And she's like, I can't leave without helping her. And then she went over and helped her. And I just thought that was really sweet. Because sometimes with the reality shows, I mean, they put all their energy and their emotion into it.

Sometimes it is real life, too. So your favorite moment wasn't when Johnny Banana stole Sarah's money. That was my worst moment. I actually really like Sarah. What top four changes would you make to tooth and claw? Well, first off, maybe this is the last category. First off, I would have you guys let me know what story you're going to use every time. Because I think that I see the human side of it sometimes more than you do.

Sometimes you guys go for the animal side of it. or I see the female side of it. And I just think that I could write you some questions or just some observations so that you could focus on it. Kind of like imagine there's a girl in the room with you, that question you asked us a while ago. I don't know. Yeah. Let's say yes. And then I think also you should do these toothy tales every six months at least.

I agree with you. And also get my opinion on it because I actually. connect with these people. Yeah. And sometimes they do after stories and things like that. And I know more about it. So your main thing is just we need to be willing to the car. So basically you really need to involve me a little more.

Okay. Or at least ask my advice. Okay. And then the other thing, what I get to more. You could be like that listener who said he was going to email us every day until we had a month. Why don't you just start doing that? Just doing that?

Pretty much, yes. That's not true, Wes. Okay. And if I did email you every day, you guys wouldn't know. Jeff wouldn't know because he doesn't check his email. Wow. That's fired. Well, you don't.

And I don't know if Mike knows. Oh, I check them. Because he never replies back. That's not personal. Yeah. It's just how I live my weird little isolated life. Okay. Okay, Wes does.

And actually, Wes gets back to me on things. I think you're wasting your time on this one. Okay. I want to throw any more in or are you done? No, I think we're done. Okay. Okay. Do you want to give us each a compliment?

Yes, I think. Okay. Okay. Wes is really good about, he feels people's feelings more. And so he checks in with me and he checks in with others to see how they're doing. And I do really like that. It's really nice. Okay.

And Jeffrey, you have a real good connection with children and younger ones. I know when some of the younger people, people have emailed you or contacted you, you're really nice to them. And I like that. It's nice. It's a good talent to have. You just connect with them and they like you. I mean, I'm child. I have a... You're on similar levels. We're on the same level. Wait, and Mike? And then Mike, Mike has some, I'm trying to learn from Mike because Mike is really good at being happy with how he is. Like I told them, I like the listeners that get Mike's humor.

And I said, like, sometimes you make a comment and I don't know if anyone's heard it and then people will comment on it. And he basically just said, yeah, well, it's okay if they don't comment on it because I still, you know, I still think it's funny. Like, just that he's satisfied with his own self. And I like that. He doesn't need validation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that a lot. It's, I'm actually trying to do that, Mike. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah, because of you. Do you have a favorite fact you've learned this year from the podcast? I really like that orcas have never killed someone in the wild. Okay.

Because it makes me a lot less afraid of them. Yeah. That's great. I got two more, but I don't know. Do you want me to keep on? Let's do the, what do you want to do before turning 70? Well, I was thinking I'd really like you guys to want. you on the podcast for me to take me on a trip to show me something we do owe you yeah no i want you

to the i would like it to be where it's like your idea and you think it would be fun though not out of obligation i had one more question there's i was just kind of curious about do you consider yourself a boomer i don't know no i don't i don't consider yourself a boomer you're not you're a little young for it i think she's a baby boomer you are a boomer where's the cutoff boomer like you're right square in the middle of it. I don't think so. Wasn't there war going? Your dad was in the military and got back and had the kids.

For the Korea War. 1946 to 1964. Yep. I'm a baby boomer. Not right in the middle though. Last question. Oh, yeah, how do you feel about it? I don't care.

I don't care at all. Do you consider yourself a... That's somebody that's a label. Do you consider yourself a Karen? No. Absolutely not. The way you're answering some of these questions will live and A little Karen-ish.

And I also think that it shouldn't, they shouldn't use that name. I think that's right. It sucks for Karen. I liked that you brought that up before us. That was, that was weird talent. I see a video that says like, oh, look at this Karen. And I see a short blonde woman. I'm like, please don't be my mom.

Please don't be my mom. All right. Last question. Who's your favorite? I don't have favorites. All right. Fine. Okay.

Mike, I had three questions for you. because I think sometimes, you know, we do this Mother's Day episode every year, and it always makes me think of your mom and just how sweet of a lady she was. So I want to ask you a couple questions about her. First of all, what animal reminds you most of your mom? I thought about this one a lot and couldn't come up with a great answer without doing a lot of anthropomorphizing. Yeah. I settled on penguin because they seem, and I know this isn't, you know,

I don't know what's going on in penguin's brains, but they seem really happy and friendly and kind and very curious. They don't really mind, you know, interacting with humans when they come up and stuff like that. Also very devoted to their life partner. And my mom and dad had indefatigable amounts of love for each other. Yeah. So I think a penguin. I don't know what kind of penguin.

Yeah. They're monogamous. Yeah. Monogamous. All right. Monogamy. That's the first word that comes to my mind. When you think of your mind.

She's so monogamous. Wow. All right. What was a favorite tradition that you had of yours with your mom? Oh man, there's so many. Besides the Christmas almond or whatever. Yeah, the Christmas almond.

That's more of like a family history tradition. Yeah. Tradition. But my mom, the one that always comes to my mind, it's a little silly, but every Valentine's Day we'd get these massive,

she'd make massive sugar cookies in the shape of a heart. Yeah. And we would frost them in different colors and put like... How massive? Like, seriously, like, Just big.

No. Like a garbage can size is what he's saying right now. Each one would take up the oven. Wow. They got smaller and smaller as the years went on, but we'd decorate them with. That's inflation for you. I know. Yeah.

I realized that probably we shouldn't be eating like 700,000 calories worth of cookies on Valentine's Day. But we'd throw a little like cinnamon candies on the frosting and write different messages and stuff. And it's just a really fun thing she did with all of her kids every year. That's cute. That's really fun. My last question, do you think your mom ever did drugs? There's no way. I can't like, so my mom is easily the most pure person I ever knew.

Yeah. And she tried the hardest. Hey. The hardest drugs? Yeah, she tried the hardest drugs. She tried so hard to be perfect that it was almost physically painful for her. She really caused herself a lot of anxiety and grief because any tiny little mistake she would make. It would torture her for a lifetime, you know?

Yeah. Sounds like drugs. Sounds like drugs would have done her sometime. I know. Can I tell a story of her? Yeah. What was her name? Pam.

Yeah. I mean, it's not a, it's just a me thing there. You know, I don't remember my mom's name sometimes. Cindy. Cindy, that's right. I was hanging out with Mike once and I was leaving your house. You were like living at your parents' house. Yeah, basement.

As a. late 20s, that's embarrassing. I was still in college. No, it wasn't late 20. Whatever, yeah. But I was leaving his house, and his mom came in with groceries and had like two gallons of milk. And she was like, oh, sorry, I didn't know you were here. Do you want, like, this gallon of milk?

And I was like, what do you mean? And she was like, like, do you want this milk? And I was like, didn't you buy it for yourself? And she's like, well, I mean, you can have it. I was like, no, I'm all right. Like, thank you, though. And then I think she, like, felt bad for offering me the milk. Yeah, it's totally her to...

Wow. Yeah. She was... Like, she apologized to me that she offered me milk. Right. She would say sorry because she didn't get the milk for you in the first place and then say sorry that it even crossed her mind that maybe you would want the milk. But she was genuinely disappointed that she didn't do Jeff's shopping for him.

Yeah. Even though she had no idea that he was over. That's really funny. She would have given you some of that lasagna for sure. Yeah, I know. I have a question too. So happy. So happy I didn't share it with you.

Did she teach you, did you guys have to do thank you notes when you were younger? She was very big on leaving thank you notes whenever we went over to visit. No, but did she have you guys do them like after Christmas? Definitely. And that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

For sure. I think the first time you came here, you wrote us a thank you note. Oh, that's nice. And I was thinking, you guys always had to write thank you notes while you were growing up. Yeah. I was just listening to the podcast. You guys just took what you could get from you. We always sent something, Jeff.

But I just, I was listening to one of your podcasts and it said you guys were saying, you're sorry that you didn't write back. But I have realized just even doing the stickers and the toothy tails, if you have so many people riding in. It is really hard. And we're all pretty lazy. Yeah. That's true. Well, we're going to wrap this up, but mom, you gave us each a compliment, so I'm going to give you one. Thanks so much for helping us switch these episodes every year. I think everyone really looks forward to them. And every time you're on an episode, we get

lots of people that say, I'm so glad this is a Cindy episode. It's so fun having Cindy on the podcast. And I think a big part of that is because your love for wildlife and animals shines through. I think that's a big part of the reason that we all got so into, or that me and Jeff got so into wildlife, is that you saw that in us at a young age and you let that grow. And not everyone does that. So thank you for doing that. You're welcome. Can I say just a couple, just one more, two more things? One or two.

Yeah, okay. You're taking my compliment for you then, though. No. We don't have time. No. Choose. No, just go for the same. Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I have made some friendships through the podcast. And I know you guys can't shout out names because there's so many for you because you have two. But I don't have that many. So I just want to say hi to Nessa, Katie, Pat, Erica and Wyatt and Aiden. Nice. I got it in. Lucky listeners. Aden's the one.

He's the nine-year-old, right? He's not nine. He's like, I think he's 12. 13. 13. Yeah. I get mixed up. Yeah.

13. All right. Shout out to my mom's friends. Jeff, you can just give me a compliment off the mic. I'll do it. It's Mother's Day. Yeah. I think it's really sweet that you just seem to always be thinking about the podcast and your sons and how you can help us out.

Thank you for your input. What was the one? You sent me, because I've like said I've dealt with depression, you know, and you sent me that great Instagram video of a guy who just bought a nice coat and now he's not depressed anymore. Yeah. Did that work for you? I haven't tried it yet. Let's go. It was a nice coat.

You should get that coat. Yeah. Maybe those. Let's go coat shopping. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for always thinking about us. It means a lot. All right.

I have one other thing to add. Just, I think unique in my experience on this podcast, we make a lot of jokes about my mom. Yeah. And I'm usually at the head of it. I know a lot of people in my position are out there having a hard time on Mother's Day. And I want it to be known that it truly was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. And there's persistent pain that leads to even to this day illogical and weird thoughts. And it's hard.

I choose to deal with it by making jokes, but I know some people out there are struggling and just want it to be known that our hearts are with you. It is a special day and mothers are great. Yeah. Alive or dead. Thank you so much. That needed to be said. That's really great.

Your mom is a special woman. We all miss her. All right. Well, thanks to all you mothers out there, you know, it's probably after Mother's Day by the time this comes out. But thanks to everyone that posted photos of your moms on Instagram, all your hot moms out there. Keep doing it year round.

Don't make it a one-day thing. And thanks for listening, guys. We love you. Love you. See ya. Mom, you love them? Yep. Love you.

Okay, everyone. I know we just said we love you, but something really important came up and we had to add this in. So, Cindy? Yeah, I found something else in my notes. I forgot. Yeah. And we can't wait till next year.

Jeff, how many pages of notes would you say mom has in front of them? They're not organized. They're not organized. She's been shuffling through the entire podcast. I'm your mom, Jeff. We got the same thing. This is a question that we had a listener. You guys told me before you do it and you never did.

You're still shuffling your notes. Okay. The notes are done. So this is from Myra. Myra says I'm a huge fan of your podcast and I really appreciate all that you do. I have a scenario for all of you to answer. You're at the bottom of a 100-foot canyon. The bottom is 10 feet wide and 300 feet long.

You are dead center. On one side of the canyon at the very far end is a male grizzly bear, and on the other side is a male moose. Just past the animals is freedom. Both full-grown animals are looking at you, but perfectly calm. You have to escape the canyon and you can't climb out. Which animal do you choose to face? Thanks, guys.

really hope you can answer this on a future episode. Well, thanks to my mom, we're answering it, Myra. This is worth coming back in for. Yeah. Picking the moose. Me too. You're going towards the moose? It outweighs the grizzly by three times.

It does, but with the moose, I think if it gets upset at you, it's going to trample you a little bit and then leave you alone. With the grizzly, it might decide just to kill you and eat you even. And I'd much rather just like... But these animals are... It's not like they're trying to kill us, right? It's just a random situation. I think I'm going towards the bear. I've snuck past moose too like that in that kind of scenario almost.

How wide are moose antlers? But I've seen videos of bears that just walk right by people. Yeah, I feel like the moose, you have a higher chance of it getting mad at you. I disagree. I think a pretty high chance on both these animals if you're like creeping. Bears don't like when you approach them. But you don't want them to like it. You want them to run away.

I was thinking get closer and closer in a little moment and little segments. Like I feel like I could get the bear to run away easier than I could get the moose. I guess I misunderstood that I thought that the animals are staying there in this situation and you have to move past them. Like that you can't just try to scare them. Because in that case, I just wait right until one of them left. Yeah. Hot lava's coming behind you. Yeah, there you go.

My interpretation is that like you need to get through with the animal there. But like if you're like walking towards one, it can run away. If it's just like a face-off, obviously, it's the moot. I thought it was just a face-off. Like, you have to walk past it. I mean, I feel like that means the animal is not acting typical behavior, though. Yeah, but sometimes bears do just hold their ground. Sometimes.

Yeah, but what if it's open? Fair enough. Yeah, if it's open that the bears can move or the moose can move. I'd still probably take the moose. I think I'd try to scare the bear away, and if it didn't move, I'd go towards the moose. I'm going to change the bear. I think I could do it like a matrix wall run vault and jump over. Yeah.

Yeah. I think. I do moose. Bears don't like to be in like tight corridors with people. Neither do moose. But I'm just, I think I'm operating on like the assumption that one of these animals is going to come at me. You need to be charged by moose again. I want it to be the moose.

Yeah. My assumption is that they're not going to. Yeah. And that the moose, I've had moose charge at me. I've never had a bear charge at me. Well, whoever asked this question right in with. with a little more detail so we can really understand. The animal's stank place.

If we can't scare it off, I think we all pick the moose. Right. Yeah. If we can scare it, then I think you got a good argument, but I still would rather hope. I would rather go for the moose even knowing that the bear might run away. But Wes, I thought you really wanted to scar from a bear or something. Yeah, I don't want to get killed by one though.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Can you live with yourself now, Bob? Yeah. Can we finally leave? Maybe there's your answer. All right.

Thank you. Bye. Bye.