The $3500 RABBIT - PART ONE

Lauren was in Seventh Grade when we moved. Middle school starts in sixth grade in Los Angeles. So Fifth grade was her last year in elementary last year at the Magnet School she’d started in second grade and it was the year she met her first true love.

His name was Gravy[1].

Gravy was a bunny.

The fifth grade classes all had pets. Lauren’s class pet was a little bunny named Gravy because he was gray over white. It was a color thing. Gravy had a brother who was brown over white and he was called Caramel. He had another brother named Harvey that had nothing to do with color, but was, of course, the character in the Marcy Chase play and movie adapted from it.[2]

Each weekend and on holidays, one of the children in the class would get to tote Gravy, cage and all, home. The rest of the time he stayed in the classroom, in the cage and, I guess, learned fractions.

Early on, we were plagued with requests to let Gravy come home on the weekends and holidays. We acquiesced, though we were told that rabbits were smelly and chewed on everything and pooped everywhere.

Such was not the case with Gravy, something I attributed to the excellence of Lauren’s fifth grade teacher who must have been an inspiration to the little fellow. He was neat as a pin, only pooped once and would occasionally nip at the carpet, but for the most part[3] quiet and non-smelly. He’d watch me do yoga. He’d grunt. Sometimes he’d grind his teeth[4] and he was, really, pretty fun.

Oh. And whatever feelings Lauren felt for him, he felt for Patricia. He doped out the house pretty quick and he would put his head down for me[5] he’d like getting pet by Lauren and Connor, but for Patricia he had a love like for no other. He would literally dance around her feet, jump and prance and just generally make a fool out of himself much the same as I had when I first met her[6].

He was in love.

And who could resist his face?

Somewhere along March, Lauren let us know that SOMEONE was going to bring Gravy home --- TO KEEP.

FOREVER!

LIKE A PET!

Patricia and I discussed it. You know a pet is a lot of responsibility, but you never really know how much until you don’t have one and then seriously contemplate getting one. Patricia and I had both had dogs growing up, but that was growing up and you knew Mom and, very occasionally, Dad would be there to pick up the slack. Now we were adults and we would be the slack picker-uppers.

Being a slack piker-upper is not an attractive proposition.

Also, we vacationed once in a while and had no family around – one of the reasons we didn’t have a dog yet.

And speaking of dogs, we’d always wanted one of those. In fact, when I’d gone back to working at home, Patricia had given me a Dagwood Bumsted-like list of jobs to do around the house[7] and top of the list was “Prepare house for a possible pet”.

I knew what “pet” meant. Neither of us were fond of cats, snakes, iguanas, she was okay with birds and fish were just plain boring. By “pet” she meant “dog” and I had done what I could about the fencing and figuring out where to put a kennel if we wanted one outside[8].

But we had never considered a rodent of the leporidae family[9].

But Gravy grew on us and when Lauren called, excitedly, from the office one day to say “Mrs. Metson says I can take Gravy home if it’s okay with you!”[10] We all knew Gravy was coming to live with us.

He became king of the living room. And he knew it. A large part of family life revolved around letting Gravy out to play every night. We’d close the doors and watch him to make sure he didn’t get at any electrical cords[11]. He would kick his heels up and tear around, kind of like a cat with the tears.

Then we had him fixed.

It’s recommended for rabbits if you’re not going to breed them.[12] It lengthens their life.

That doesn’t mean they like it.

When we brought him home from the vet, Gravy sat in the cage and stared at me for a full twenty-four hours. I swear. He blamed me for what had happened to him.[13]

He was much less active after that. As I would be, I suppose.

But he still ran to Patricia and danced around her legs.

And she loved him.

Honestly. I liked the rabbit and it made me want to throw up.

“Are you my little buuuuuunnnnnn---eeeeeeeeee.” She’d say.

I’d have to leave the room[14].

Lauren adored the bunny. Connor liked him too. He’d come out and hop around. He’d lay himself out at the door or in front of the coffee table and relax. If he wanted attention, he’d come up and nudge you with his nose. You’d be surprised how hard a little animal can nudge. The first couple were nice and mellow Californian “Hey! Hi! I’m your pet! How about a little scratch, please?” But if you didn’t get right to them he was like a nut in the subway shoving you until you paid attention. “Listen, human scum. I don’t like our relationship any better than you do. I didn’t ASK to be born at this point on the food chain. You COULD make my life a LITTLE less miserable if you scratched that point between my ears that makes me grind my teeth in joy. You know. If you aren’t TOO busy ruining the planet. Thank you.”

So funny I was going to put so much time and effort into bringing him with us, huh?

---

[1] No Wavy, but it’s sort of a litmus if people make the wavy comment or the food related comment.

[2] And God help me that I know the rabbit’s family tree.

[3] And I was usually home with him.

[4] Which is the bunny version of purring.

[5] A sign of bunny subservience, i.e., I was the head bunny.

[6] Sans the dancing. I did prance a bit, though.

[7] “Couldn’t you put them on little slips of paper? In a jar? Like in ‘Blondie’?” I asked. She just shoved the pad at me without a hint of a smile

[8] Though I am a proponent of house pets, largely because of the phrase “house pets” and anything that’s kept outside most of the time is “livestock”.

[9] Not that I knew his surname.

[10] And what school lets a kid call from the office like that? Over something like that.

[11] Rabbits can chew on them and fricassee themselves. I don’t think there are any rabbit suicide prevention hotlines, so they just go on with the self-immolation.

[12] And I loved reading the phrase “if you are going to breed your rabbit”, knowing that breeding was something they did really well on their own.

[13] And I wasn’t even the one who’d taken him TO the vet! My crime was picking him up and having some sliced apple for him when he came home.

[14] And it was only 1000 square feet, so where was I going?

Entire contents COPYRIGHT 2009 by Shaun McLaughlin