I was in the downtown Midland post office today and needed only one thing. The guy working the counter expressed mock dismay he wouldn’t be able to sell me anything else, so I had to point out that I missed being asked to buy bears.

If you frequented this post office up until a certain gentleman’s retirement, you know what I mean. He looked kind of like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and rarely did I ever do business with him without being offered the chance to buy one of the Postal Service’s variety of small stuffed bears. When I went back to the office one day and mentioned that a local post office worker was retiring, the response was, “the bear guy?”

Not today. The younger guy said they did have some animals marked down, and pointed to a shaggy cow.

“That’s not a bear,” I protested.

“It’s an animal,” he replied.

“I wouldn’t mind meeting a COW in the woods,” I told him, and he laughed.

Do cows have picnics?

This post originally appeared on ourMidland.com, the online home of the Midland (MI) Daily News. Republished with permission.