Some people’s first instinct on spotting a bear is to go the opposite direction. Yet when Mary Maley sees one, she attempts to reason with it as though the bear is capable of understanding her human language.

While on a solo kayaking trip in Alaska, Maley discovered a bear attacking her kayak. After a bit, when the bear had decided the hapless plastic boat was not, in fact, edible, Maley verbally thanked the bear. And then pepper-sprayed it in the face.

Getting pepper-sprayed in the face is something that the bear did, in fact, understand. At which point it decided to go medieval on her only mode of escape.

Maley pleads with the now-irate bruin with increasing desperation.

“It's the end of September. Why are you here? You’re supposed to be asleep,” she wails to the bear, who was probably about to go do that until someone sprayed bear spray in its face.

In the end, the kayak was destroyed. Maley was eventually rescued, however there is no word on whether she still believes she can communicate with bears.