(Courtesy: ABC-7, California) Many of you grew up watching Yogi Bear cartoons. The premise was simple: Yogi, often with the reluctant help of his diminutive sidekick Boo-Boo, would pirate picnic baskets out of Jellystone Park while Ranger Smith wasn’t looking. Which in turn, highlighted an issue faced in real parks across the nation: humans and bears do not mix, no matter the situation. When a bear gets curious, hungry, or worst of all, angry, humans and their property don’t fare well…and that’s putting things very, very nicely. General rule of thumb: keep a wide distance away from a bear.

Unfortunately for one individual, however, a July trip to Mammoth Mountain in California brought David Herndon and his wife closer to the creatures than he dared be near. Luckily, he and his wife are just fine. However, their Mercedes C-class didn’t fare so well when a bear entered the car via a passenger door and found itself shut in the car. No good comes out of the phrase, “…when the bear freaked out” and Herndon now knows that a bear will…well, you know…anywhere it feels like, and not just in the woods. Somehow, the car itself was drivable after the bear figured out how to escape the Mercedes, and he even found someone willing to drive the car five hours back to their house, reeking of the freshest Ursa-supplied fertilizer and all.

(Thanks to Randal Burns for the tip!)