Rabid Rod continues to emote like Charles Nelson Reilly, as Mark probably starts thinking that working-from-home ain’t such a great idea. It sounds quite possible that naïve Rod just got things totally mixed up from the start.

For example, it could actually have been a real bear chasing the journalist in the water who called in while he was being chased. Rod might have misheard his call: “Bear!<huff> Water! <puff> Bear…” or something incoherent like that. Or it could be actual ginormous water bears that inadvertently grew 10 feet tall because of radioactive pollutants in a nearby river. Either way works for a Mark Trail article.

But finally, let’s not overlook the message box in panel 4:  A hint for the Sunday nature chat?