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I was on the High Ridge Trail, walking down, when I spotted the bear walking up. It was an adult black bear, short but squat, trotting up the path with its rolling gait. It sniffed back and forth as it walked, relying on its sense of smell much more than its vision.

I found myself, in the heat of the moment, struggling to remember what I should do upon encountering a bear by myself in the high country. Should I wave my arms and yell? Walk away quickly? Play dead? I had read somewhere that running away was a bad idea, and so was climbing a tree, but beyond that I felt a little under-prepared on what to do.

Eventually I decided to make a lot of noise. I had my hiking poles, so I banged them together as loud as I could. After a moment I joined in with some loud whistles and the odd shout. I stood blocking the trail, trying to look as big as possible, hoping the bear would become scared or annoyed or both and would decide to go somewhere else.

To my surprise, the bear reared up on its hind legs. It raised its muzzle and made a kind of yowl, and it put its paws over its sensitive ears. This was absolutely not the reaction I had been expecting, and I confess I stopped making my racket for a moment because I was so stunned.

The bear chose that moment to tentatively remove its paws from its ears. "Jesus, Mister!" it shouted. "What the hell was that all about?"

The cat had my tongue for a few moments. "What the hell was what?" I finally asked.

"That noise, you jackass!" replied the bear. "Christ, that was terrible! Was that you singing? That was not good singing."

"I wasn't singing," I said defensively. "I was trying to frighten you away."

"You…what?" said the bear, dropping back to all fours and lumbering up towards me. "Scare me away? Why? What did I ever do to you?"

The bear drew alarmingly close. I admit I panicked. I dropped to the ground, curled up into a ball, and played dead like my life depended on it.

The bear's hot muzzle snuffled at me. "Oh for crying out loud," protested the bear. "NOW what are you doing?"

"I'm playing dead!" I said, my voice muffled. "Go away!"

"Okay, how shall I put this…" said the bear. "One, if you're playing dead and somebody asks you what you're doing, the first thing you should NOT do is say 'I'm playing dead'! It kind of spoils the effect, right? Okay, two… hey, could you uncurl or something? This is really awkward."

I cautiously came out of my tuck and peered anxiously at the bear looming over me. "I'm just trying to follow the rules," I complained.

"The rules? What rules?" asked the bear suspiciously.

"The rules for interacting with bears," I said. "The ones we learned in Scouts, I guess. About how to stay safe when bears are around."

"Oh THOSE rules," said the bear, chuckling a little to himself. "Listen, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Those rules are pretty old, right? They were written by the first people to come into the wilderness a long time ago. And they haven't really changed much since then. But, guess what, people are completely different now. So why shouldn't bears be a little different too? C'mon, stand up and let's do a little update to these rules of yours."

I did as I was told and sat down on a stump next to my pack. The bear sat on its haunches in front of me. It smelled like soil and wet dog. "Okay, let's go with the starters," said the bear. "When I first saw you, what were you doing?"

"Making noise to alert you to my presence and make you go away," I said.

"I have a question," said the bear. "Why are you out here? in nature, I mean?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "To kind of get away from it all, I guess."

"That's right," said the bear. "Same for us bears. We don't want your stupid racket. It doesn't make us go away; it's just annoying. Why do you want to be annoying? That's not neighborly. Hey, if you want to make a bear go away, BE BORING. Don't engage us in conversation. Don't express any new thoughts or interesting opinions. Just because we're bears doesn't mean we don't crave some stimulation, you know?"

"I never thought about it that way," I said.

"Of course you didn't," said the bear. "Now, when you thought I was coming a little too close, what did you do? You played dead, right? What was that supposed to accomplish?"

"Well, I had always heard that bears wouldn't attack a person that it thought was dead," I answered.

"Attack? Where did attack come from?" demanded the bear. "Look, if I see a hiker dead on the trail, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to call 9-1-1. And you know how expensive that can be when you make a false call to those people, especially way out here in the wilderness. You don't want that bill, my man."

"This is crazy," I said. "You're trying to make me believe that bears interact with people the way that people interact with people. That's nuts. You're a wild animal."

The bear threw up its paws. "Now, see?" it said. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's just the kind of Natty Bumpo-era nonsense that has urso-hominid relations at its present sorry state. While you humans have been developing your culture and writing reams about it in books and magazines, we've been rummaging your dumpsters."

I nodded. "To eat our trash," I said.

"No!" shouted the bear. "To read your old magazines! We know all about Charlie Sheen and global warming and Bieber Fever. We're up on you guys and what you're like. We just wish you'd be a little more up on us."

"Hey, I read _National_Geographic_," I said defensively.

The bear waved a paw dismissively. "I don't wanna hear about your porn," he said. "That's nasty. Look, you can't learn about bears by reading human magazines. You have to, I dunno, engage. You've got to take the time to really sit down with us and get to know us. We're not so different from you, you know?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding my head. "Yeah. That sounds great. I feel like I could really relate to the modern bear."

"Good!" said the bear. It slapped the ground with its paws and stood up. "I think this is the beginning of something beautiful. Why don't you come up the trail tomorrow? I'll introduce you to a couple of friends and we can, you know, dialogue."

"I will," I promised. I turned to walk back down the trail.

"Bring Cheetos," called the bear.

"What?" I asked, turning around.

"Cheetos," said the bear. "The crunchy kind."

Unsettled, I continued down the path.

"Lots of them!" shouted the bear after me.