The Bunny Story · Monday June 14, 2010 by Julie
Bob sat in our living room, feeling expansive. “Yeahp,” he said, “Did I ever tell you about the time I went to visit my friend Jim back East?”
“No, I don’t think you did,” I said, cautiously.
“Well, he’d just moved out to the country like he always said he would. Had him a trim little house, a plot of land with a bunch a trees on it, and got himself a dog. Wasn’t a big dog, but a dog. You know the kind I mean.”
I nodded. Java looked nervous.
“So, he went around shaking hands with everyone in his neighborhood, thought he’d get started out on the right foot, but there was one neighbor who just didn’t warm up to him. His neighbor on the right. Same situation as him, newly moved out to the country, but instead of getting a dog, those guys had a pet rabbit. Hated Jim. He couldn’t figure out why, they just didn’t like him.
“So, one day, he’s sitting on his porch, enjoying his new situation, when his dog comes trotting up the front walk with a rabbit in his mouth. “Oh, no!” thinks my friend Jim, and sure enough, it was the neighbor’s pet rabbit.”
“Was it dead?” I asked, looking sternly at Java, who has been known to misbehave in the matter of rabbits.
“Stone cold dead. Jim is appalled. What’s he going to do? Here he wants to be friends with his neighbor, eventually, and now his dog has killed their pet bunny. So, and mind you, this is while I was standing there, he rushes the bunny into the house, and runs warm water over him to get the dog spit and dirt off of him. That wasn’t enough, so he got out the shampoo and conditioner, and got every last bit of dirt off this poor dead bunny, and finally he blow dries it with his personal blow dryer. Then he sneaks out the back door, and scuttles through the bushes so his neighbor can’t see him, and sneaks the bunny back into its hutch and closes the door on it. Now it’s laying there, dead but nobody would suspect the dog, right?”
Java looks guilty.
“So then, we’re sitting there with our mimosas, and all of a sudden the neighbor lady bursts out of her house holding the bunny, and screaming “He’s back, Bunny’s back!” She didn’t stop screaming for awhile, but eventually we got her calmed down, and she told us that Bunny died three days ago, and she buried him in her back yard, but now here he was again, just as she’d found him on the day he died.”
