Friday, August 29, 2008

How did I miss this?

How this slipped on by me is anyone's guess.  A few weeks ago, the news of a real live (well, real dead, I guess) Bigfoot showing up in rural Georgia captivated the country for, oh, a few days or so.  The men who found the body of the beast, tired of being mocked for what so obviously looked like a halfway decent Halloween costume shoved into a freezer, told the world that their naysayers would soon 'eat their words' once they were vindicated with sophisticated DNA tests and exams.

So, naturally, no one was surprised when the results came back and what was in the freezer turned out to be a Sasquatch costume and animal guts.

Stories like this are typically pretty funny (though I do wonder where they got all of those animal guts from...), but the fact that this hoax was so ballyhooed from coast to coast gives us an idea of how popular Bigfoot - or at least the concept of Bigfoot - still is and how much people may want to believe it exists.  It may be a myth but it speaks, I think, to our desire to believe in something ancient and mysterious, a gentle sentinel lurking in our still-wild forests.

What makes the Sasquatch (or the vastly more cultured Yeti) so intriguing?  Why do we continue to look after so many years?  There's the visual appeal, but...

Regardless, it seems like a great marketing opportunity for Teddy and the Yeti has passed us by.  "In this issue: See! A frozen monster and her best friend!  See! A Yeti in a refrigerator!  See! How to use opossum guts as garnish!"

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