The Three Bears

May 9, 2008 at 8:16 AM
21 comments

So, I can get past the supposition that there is a family of bears. I can get past the supposition that these bears talk. And that they have built a home. And eat cooked porridge. And sleep in beds.

I can accept all that as a fabrication of an anthropomorphic story.

But I simply can't accept that Mama Bear's (no, not Mamma Bear) porridge was too cold. See, Mama Bear's bowl was the middle size: smaller than Papa's and larger than Baby's. It makes thermodynamic sense that Papa Bear's porridge was too hot, since it was the largest bowl. But Baby Bear's porridge would be the coolest if each bowl was left to sit out and cool uninhibited. Mama Bear's bowl would have to be under a fan or on ice or something to have cooled down the temperature of her porridge below Baby Bear's.

*sigh*

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LOL!!! I've had trouble with that very same thing myself!

You are not alone.

[this is good]

Mama Bear was having hot flashes, which messed up her sense of temperature. She thought her porridge was waaaay hotter than it really was and cooled it down before the story started. Man, why you gotta get all up in Mama Bear's personal affairs?

Helloooo, she likes her porridge cold. All she had to do was get a cooling plate. I'm sure they make them for more than just toddlers. ;)

Sure, ok... but then the story should say, "And before the Bear family took a walk, Mama Bear put her porriage on a cooling plate". :-P

The real truth is that Mama Bear always feeds her family first and then herself.

Mama Bear slaves over the hot stove. When the porridge is done cooking, she turns off the stove. She dishes out Papa Bear's bowl, it is big and deep so the very hot porridge stays hot longer. Then she dishes out the baby's bowl, it is smaller of course, but the porridge is still warm from the pot. Finally after bringing both bowls to the table she returns to the kitchen to fix her own food. What is left is the porridge at the bottom of the pot which has cooled. After putting it into her bowl and taking it to the table to sit down her porridge is now cold. It was not that warm to begin with you see.

Word to that. I can't remember the last time I ate something that I prepared while it was still hot.

[this is good]

Very nice... very true.

[this is good]

Wouldn't it depend on the depth of the bowls? If Papa Bear's bowl was deep, Mama Bear's bowl was unusually shallow and wide, and Baby Bear's bowl was somewhere in the middle, wouldn't that enable the temperatures to pan out as written? With a greater surface area exposed, Mama Bear's porridge could've cooled much more quickly than Papa Bear's--at least it makes sense to me.

It is conundrums such as this that feed my insomnia (which is rarely of a temperate, Baby Bear's porridge-like nature).

You are scarily brilliant.

Ahh so true - if you shy away from the accepted convention that each bear had a similar shape bowl of gradient sizes, then a shallow, wide bowl for Mama Bear would cool off faster due to the larger surface area. Plus, as I've heard from a couple of the mothers here, there is the Mothers Do Not Eat Hot Food rule, which may invalidate the laws of physics.

I'll have to ponder that one further... ;-)

I'm not shying away from the similar gradient convention at all. I just came from a family with mismatched cereal bowls. ;-)

I do agree with the MDNEHF rule, though. Somewhere between mismatched bowls and MDNEHF, I hope you'll be able to sleep tonight.

hey jody, you made it to [culture is good]!
again

;) you are on a roll, girl.

Isn't the whole story told from the perspective of Goldilocks? Clearly she's a delusional narcissist with a sense of entitlement bordering on psychosis.

[this is good]

I have never put enough thought on this but now that you have mentioned it, it does make sense. You're a very keen observer.

It the Fourth Bear Theory, as endorsed by Jasper Fforde. A mysterious Fourth Bear came in before Goldilocks, and ate first Baby Bear's porridge and then refilled it, and then ate Papa Bear's porridge and refilled it.

[das ist gut]

See, it was like this.

Being the matriarch of a politically-incorrect fairytale in which fair-haired children are allowed to enter houses uninvited and in which mothers discharge all the domestic duties of the household, Mamma Bear had initially cooked three bowls of porridge, but by the time she had arranged Baby Bear in his high-chair with baby-bowl and baby-spoon, Papa Bear had wolfed down his porridge and was demanding a second helping. Mamma Bear, being the good politically-incorrect-fairytale matriarch, went ahead and prepared him a second serving while hers and Baby's grew cold.

Being the saintly ursine mother that she was, she stirred a spoonful of Papa's hot porridge into the baby's bowl, but before she or her family could partake of their meal, Papa got an important phone call from his agent, and the bears set out to go on a Bear's Picnic. Ever since then, the family has lived from the royalties of that famous song, and have since then never had to dine on lukewarm porridge again.

Had Goldilocks waited a few more years, she might have just as easily been complaining about the temperature of Mama Bear's crowned rack of lamb.

AND PERMIT ME TO ADD --

It was easy enough to rationalize the porridge, but now something entirely new is puzzling me.

I've seen programs about bears on the Discovery Channel and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Are we REALLY expected to believe that Mama Bear and Papa Bear sleep in seperate beds?

Was Baby Bear adopted?