April 1st is traditionally a time for practical jokes.

However, posting a fake story to see if I get a ‘gotcha’ out of it can play into the law of unforseen consequences in nasty ways.  So, rather than go that way, let me leave you with a funny – if somewhat convoluted – joke:

A bear walks into a zoo and is busy looking at all the different displays:  the walk-through butterfly room (uncomfortably warm), the mouth-watering aquarium, the reptile section which just gave him the heebie-jeebies – he’d never seen animals as creepy-crawly as that before…

All through his adventure, he’s enjoying himself – but he’s feeling like a bit of an outsider.  Happy families with kids were having a grand time, but he could not but have bit of trouble identifying with them.  He decided that he should ask people for advice on how to feel less like an outsider and more included.

The first few people he approached to ask for help told him that this was an inclusive society and that if he were having trouble feeling part of it, he could enroll in a 12-step program… One helpful young woman even gave him a glossy brochure!

This was worse than useless!

Our bear felt like such an outsider – and he felt sure that the others also felt he was an outcast.  It was not so much that they would say mean things to him – oh, no!  They were too politically correct for that!  It was more in how they would try not to look at him too directly, or laugh too loudly when they were near him.

He felt invisible – as if, at any moment, he would dissolve into thin air!

Of course, he didn’t dissolve into thin air – he just felt like it…until!

Until he walked up to a most excellent exhibit:  waist-high fence was on top of a tall wall, beneath which was a moat filled with the most inviting blue water he had seen since the seal-pool quite a ways back. (Thinking of the seal-pool made him realize just how hungry he was!)

On the other side of the pool was a fun habitat with a veritable bear clan living there.

Well, our friendly bear got very excited and called out to the bears in the exhibit.  They returned his friendly greeting and invited him to pop over for a snack of berries.

Berries?  What were these berries tthese bears were talking about? His mama raised him on a wonderful diet of fish and seal – not berries. But, …

All he had to do was to climb the fence, jump down into the water moat and swim over to visit his new friends.  Then he’d find out! And, just perhaps, he might finally feel like he belonged…

He looked at them – and then at his own reflection in the water.

Their coats were a beautiful, rich brown and his was just plain boring white…  Even if they accepted him, would he feel as one of them?

Could he even adjust to their diet – which sounded so different from what he was used to?

No point in living if you don’t take chances, right?

Without giving himself time to change his mind, our friendly bear climbed the railing and, without another thought, he dove into the cool water of the moat!

As chance would have it, he did not get to see if he would fit in.  He hit the water with a tremendous splash and then he promptly dissolved in it.

Why did the white bear dissolve in water?

It’s elementary.  He was two polar…