Bunny Quest

"What is it with pet stores? I swear, don't any of them ever stay in business?" she asked as she began dialing another pet store (either the seventh or thirty-seventh she'd tried).

We all shrugged: Jess, Jeff, and I. Not a clue was to be had amongst the three of us. This question was so far out of our area of expertise that it wasn't even worth opening our mouths. Meanwhile, Sarah dialed yet another number. This time, she'd found a still-existing pet store with an employee that was available to speak with her."Hi. I was wondering if you have dwarf bunnies?"

(This was the point where the freely-flowing sands of time slowed down into the cold-molasses drip of time. Judging by the look of sheer and utter horror on Sarah's face, whatever she was hearing could not possibly have been good news.)

"Well, do you suppose if I don't throw them up against the wall, they'd be okay?"

Sarah buried her head in her hands. Meanwhile, we three were looking at each other and mouthing varied and interesting phrases that all boiled down to: "What the hell?"

"Right. Thanks." Sarah hung up the phone. She stared at us. We stared at her. We knew an explanation was forthcoming. Even under the most boring of circumstances, Sarah is an excellent storyteller, but this phone call had all the earmarks of being a less-than-boring story.

"You're not going to believe this. They don't carry them. Want to know why? Get this—apparently dwarf bunnies are really really inbred, and apparently they've got heart problems as a result. Apparently this pet store had lots of trouble with kids buying the bunnies, taking them home, throwing them against the wall, and then returning the dead bunnies for refunds.

"All I wanted to know," she wailed, "was whether or not they had dwarf bunnies! It was a 'yes' or 'no' question! I didn't need to know all this! All they had to say was 'no'!"

Jessica, the ever-practical older sister: "So I guess this means that if you find a dwarf bunny, we're not allowed to throw it against the wall to see if its little heart explodes?"

"Noooooooooooo!"

Fast-forward a day. Sarah walked in, beaming maternally and clutching the dwarf bunny she had wanted for years. "Meet Buffy. Isn't she just the most adorable thing you've ever seen?"

(It was. It weighed maybe a pound, and most of it was fur.) Collectively, from the room: "Awwwwwww!"

Then someone—I forget who—said, laughing, "Hey, can we throw the bunny against the wall to see what happens?"

Sarah howled in protest, then giggled along with the rest of us. The bunny cowered in fear and terror.

Smart bunny.

Comments

You cold, heartless, cruel people. How dare you deny science the understanding of what would happen to the bunny *if* you threw it against the wall! Just like the number of licks that it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop ... the world may never know. -sigh-

Perhaps we can simulate it on a computer ... somehow get the bunny as a model in Quake III? Nah, we need real world data ...

You'd need about five bunnies, actually, to start getting good coefficient of restitution datapoints. :)

Awwww! I can't believe people would actually do that to bunnies!! That is so mean and cruel and heartless and much other stuff. Glad this bunny found a good home though. :)

aww I love bunnies. I have 2 right now, one here and one back at mom and dad's :)

[I hope that everyone realizes that I'm kidding about the bunnies. I guess Brian's kidding, too.]

Yes I'm kidding ... you don't *throw* bunnies. They work best shot out of cannons ... =)

I dunno; I'm just disturbed by the whole thing. Ack! it reminds me of when I remember thinking shar-peis were really cute until I discovered that they're bred specifically to be wrinkly and as a result, they have breathing problems. It's like they're walking around with a permanent, unfixable asthma attack. My suggestion is that kids just should NOT have pets. I've never seen a kid with a pet and thought, "whoah, that little brat sure is responsible." hell NO. Everything from cutting whiskers off kitties, to playing with the eyes of rodents to throwing bunnies against the wall. It's just plain WRONG. yech! anyhoo, I'm off my soapbox and going to watch Run Lola Run and the Graduate with a friend. Huzzah.

Shar pei's also have problems with the wrinkles - one example, some of them need to get their eyes "tacked" because of the skin around their eye wrinkling funny and causing problems. Oy.

Its not the kids, its the parents. Many, in fact most, children do not harm animals purposely. Kids who do are exhibiting signs of psychotic tendencies. Properly taught, kids (not all brats) can be trained to care for pets responsibly. OK, I am off my soapbox. Can you guess I am a teacher?

I think people are cruel anyway, they are cruel to each other, animals the earth and anything they can put their hands on. So I am sorry it surprised you so much that some morons are raising little serial killer animal torturing kids. I have a dwarf bunny and she is the cutest sweetest well trained bunny on this earth. :) My baby!

I WUZ WONDERING IF YOU GUYS CAN SEND ME E-MAILS OF HOW TO TAKE CARE OF A DWARF BUNNY IF YOU CAN PLEASE SEND ME AN E-MAIL THANKS PEACE OUT, NATHALIE R.

Hey Amy ... whatever happened to killing the ability of unreg'd people to comment? :D