Panda-monium

I wouldn’t call myself a coward, necessarily. Let’s just say I’m careful.  For example, even though I’ve spent a good portion of my life in Florida, I’ve never been scuba-diving, because I have O-positive blood, which means, as I understand it, I can be eaten by a shark of any blood type. 

The same goes for bears, so I see no reason to attract them, which is why I’d rather not live in a house with a den, and I refuse to grill salmon outside. Why live dangerously? 

Unfortunately, these precautions have not succeeded in keeping our home entirely bear-free. Trying to do our part for the planet, when we needed a new kitchen floor, we chose bamboo, because it grows so fast. It was fast growing all right; within a week it had spread into our dining room.  It got worse.  I came into the kitchen one morning to find a panda gnawing on my floor (at that moment I regretted not reading the small print that came with the flooring). 

My first instinct was to try to chase it away with loud noises---banging pans, for instance.  Unfortunately, all the pans were in the kitchen, with the panda. Then it occurred to me that chasing it away might be a bad idea. I had a vague recollection that the Chinese claim ownership of all pandas, and I didn’t want to cause an international incident, and single-handedly bring on (or should I say, accelerate) the collapse of the US economy, which Congress seems quite capable of doing through deficit spending, so I called the Chinese embassy in Washington and spoke to a man who called himself Cho.

“One of your pandas is in our kitchen.”

“Which one?” 

“The upstairs kitchen---off the dining room. Why do you ask?”

“No, no. Which Panda?”

“How should I know?  He’s black and white.”

“All pandas are black and white.”

“That’s my point.” 

“Does he respond to Tsing Tsing or Ling Ling?”

“He responds to bamboo.  He’s eating my floor.” 

“You are not supposed to feed him.” 

Cho seemed to be getting frustrated with me, and I was the one being eaten out of house, if not home.  I protested, “I’m not intentionally feeding him.” 

“Send me a photo,” he said, giving me his private cell number.

I sent him one of my best---the one of me sitting and smiling in a suit jacket. 

           Cho texted me back.  “Send photo of panda.”  That made sense.  I did, then he called me back.

“That’s Tsing Tsing. Can you put him on the phone?”

“How would I go about doing that? He doesn’t seem inclined to talk. He’s eating.”

“Just let me talk to him.”

I called to Tsing Tsing. (We were now on a first and second name basis.) I brought the phone close enough for him to hear, and I put it on speaker.  As I recall, the conversation went something like this: 

Cho: Unintelligible, animated Chinese.

Tsing Tsing: Pauses his chomping on bamboo.

Cho: Unintelligible animated Chinese.

Tsing Tsing: Resumes his chomping on bamboo.  

I perceived this was going nowhere (not unlike this story).  So I got back on the phone. 

“Can you just send someone to pick up your bear please?  He has eaten half my kitchen floor.”

“This is not good,” Cho said.  “Bamboo flooring is not fresh.  No nutrition.  We forbid it. Pandas are endangered.”

“This one certainly is,” I said.  “If he keeps eating the floor he’s in danger of falling into my basement.  Anyway, you need to get him out of my story so I can try to draw some spiritual lesson from all this while I still have a reader or two.  You’re not giving me much to work with.”

“Why don’t you write about your inordinate fear of sharks and bears, and your fear that a wolf sits at your bed and watches you while you’re sleeping?”

“How in the world do you know about that?”

“Facial recognition,” Cho said. “If we can monitor a billion Chinese, you don’t think we can keep track of a few hundred million Americans?  We know more about you than Google™ does.  I suggest you address your fears with a Bible verse like,

‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’”

“Wow, you even quoted it in the New King James Version, the translation I use in preaching.  So that’s my story, a panda and one verse?  That seems kind of lame.”

“Yes.  We would say it’s heavier on the wry and lighter on the bread than your typical story.  But the good news is, very few people read what you write.” 

“Well, you have a point there,” I said. “Maybe you can find me some readers in China.  Wry Bread might take off there.  It could give your people something to read to improve their English during your next pandemic.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s a good idea. We’ll put it on their English reading list: Hamlet, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost and Wry Bread.”

That made me feel good, until it occurred to me that advanced ESL classes must teach sarcasm.  Say it ain’t so, Cho.