In Earls Cove, British Columbia, a woman named Sharon Rosel was awoken in the middle of the night by a big black bear breaking into her vehicle.
The event happened around 3am on Thursday (April 13) and as she peered outside, she saw the black bear frolicking around, surrounded by shattered glass from her car window.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The bear was drinking large quantities of soda, crushing the cans with its teeth, and making an unsightly mess of her car’s interior.
Rosel said she watched the bear’s behavior from her balcony for an hour and a half. The creature started with orange soda and then moved on to cola and root beer. It didn’t stop until it reached the diet soda. In total, Rosel had 72 cans of soda in her car, and the bear drank 69 of them.
Rosel said she attempted to throw cold water on the bear, but that didn’t work. Next, she tried reasoning with it by explaining to the bear that she needed the car to get to work the next morning. However, the bear didn’t seem to care.
Finally, Rosel tried to intimidate the bear by jokingly telling it that she was a bear hunter, but this only made matters worse. The bear kept on tearing up her property.
“Then I tried psyching him out by telling him I was a bear hunter. That didn’t do anything either, so I had to stand by and just watch him devour my car,” Rosel said in an interview with CBC News: The National.
She had to stand there and watch the bear ransack her car, destroying the leather interior, breaking the window roller handle, and spilling soda everywhere.
Rosel’s car was in complete disarray, with soda spilled all over, including inside the gear shifter. She sarcastically remarked that the white leather interior matched perfectly with the orange Crush now.
She joked that the bear also knocked over a pack of paper towels, but it didn’t bother using them to clean up the mess that it made.
Rosel, who owns a food truck, bought the soda for her business the previous evening. Living in a remote area, she frequently encounters bears and is typically cautious and vigilant about not leaving food in her vehicle. However, she never imagined that a bear would be interested in soda and would break into her car to get it.
“I’ve been around bears since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I have never seen them go after pop,” said Rosel.
Bears are skilled at breaking into cars, according to the non-profit Sunshine Coast Bear Alliance. They can be attracted to even the slightest aroma, such as a candy wrapper or scented air freshener. It advises keeping vehicle windows and doors closed and locked to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
Rosel says she is now hoping that her insurance will cover some of the damage.