cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/onion/p/1473606/bear-visits-library-steals-honey-on-winnie-the-pooh-s-100th-birthday

On the very day the world marks 100 years since A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh was first published, a black bear made its way inside the Mammoth Lakes Library branch of the Mono County Free Libraries before opening hours — and, in a tribute no one asked for, went straight for the honey.

Director of Libraries, Josef Bopp, shared that the bear entered the library at approximately 6:10 a.m, well before public opening at 10:00am. Upon entering, the bear went straight for the staff snack supply, where it helped itself to peanut butter, a selection of peach cups, a pawful of cookies and — of course — one jar of honey.

Satiated, the bear then took a full tour of the library, perusing the new releases and inspecting the reference desk before, evidently content with its visit, letting itself out and departing for the day. Remarkably, no damage was reported. No shelves were toppled and no books were harmed, though the honey jar has not been returned at time of publication.

“While we love an enthusiastic patron, and we understand the excitement of the centennial,” said Bopp, “we do remind patrons- and perhaps more importantly our bears- that snacks are not part of the circulating collection.”

Winnie-the-Pooh was first published on October 14, 1926, introducing readers to a “Bear of Very Little Brain” with a very large appetite for honey. One hundred years later, the timing of the curious bears visit seems more than a coincidence.

The library invites the community (human members only) to celebrate the centennial by visiting any of the seven library of the Mono county Free Libraries for a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, or related bear titles!

Source: Mono County Free Libraries on Facebook.

I see security footage like this, and think how alien and strange all this must be to a mind that cannot comprehend purpose at this level. Just think, you're a bear, with rudimentary intelligence and curiosity which has led to good things over the eons of evolution. You can sniff out things, know how to manipulate objects, possibly even understand rudimentary "tools," like pushing objects aside, standing on them, or how thing 1 can lead to thing 2. You have memory, adaptability, and power. A lot of leisure time, too, to think. Yet until a hundred years ago, and for some bears, they have no recollection or ancestral memory beyond what they are driven to do or seen another bear do, this building is suddenly in your expanding territory.

You have no idea what this is. You enter a flat area, maybe like a huge cave, with really odd smells. Powerful; fragrances of dried paper, ink, chemical cleaner of the carpet. Humans. There may be colors that only occur in small amounts in nature; if you can detect them at all! Most of this is by smell. You know you have smelled whiffs of this here and there, but this place is a sudden insanity of overwhelming oddities. It would be so alien because everything the woods has to give is foreign here. An alien landscape that you can only grasp small snippets of. Nothing makes sense, though.

My god, this would be a life-altering experience for a bear unused to this environment.

sniff snoff mmm snackies

He's public domain now, no company can tell him what to do or not to do.