Ode to a Bunny Rabbit

He’s finally leaving. After months of near-constant annoyance, Coco-Puff-lookin’ turds covering the floors, chewed up electrical wiring and even more chewed up pant legs, our rabbit, Don Johnson, is leaving. We spent our last night together and it was magic.Sadly, he didn’t die. He was given away. To who, I’m not sure but I hope them better luck than we had. On his last day living with us, I found myself reflecting on the terrible times we had with him. It’s always the smaller things that seem to annoy people the most.

I say small, but our bunny was huge. Massive, by bunny standards. He weighs over ten pounds, has back feet that measure from the tip of my pointer finger to bottom of my palm and ears that reach down to the floor even when he stands up to his full height. When one of our friends came to visit he saw D.J. in the bathroom and thought it was a puppy.

Not only is he huge, he chose to show off his hugeness by spending most of his time behind the upstairs toilet. It didn’t matter what was going on, who was doing what sort of nasty thing in there, the bunny called it his home. And he loved it. If you took him and dragged him into the hall so you could shower alone, he’d scratch, paw and thump madly at the door until you let him back in.

His diet, despite the things we bought him (leafy greens, carrots by the bagful, pellets) consisted mostly of paper products we threw in the trash and his own poop pellets. First they stayed in the litter box. Then they were under the couch. On the bathroom floor. In the corners of rooms. We eventually figured out he was saving them for a snack.

He used his litter box during the day but when we woke up, the floor was always covered with droppings. Our sleeping, we thought, annoyed the crap out of him.

There was the time he squeezed his way through a hole in the closet and into the walls of the house, prompting my housemate to wake me up at quarter past seven in the morning to coax the rodent out of his hole with a flashlight and a well-placed alfalfa cube.

Then there’s this little thing he does with his mouth, sort of like an unknowing smirk, that comes along with a twitch of his ears. He only does it after he’s snuck in and covered my bed with his duties of the day. It almost looks like he thinks he’s leaving me something I’ll enjoy. I’ve never thanked him properly.

He’s cute, when you first look at him, and he does this figure-eight thing between your legs when you’re wearing sweatpants that’s beyond entertaining. Watching him try to cross the tiled kitchen floor was always a good time, too. But like most things that piss where you usually sleep, he and his cute tricks wore thin.

No more missed classes for trips to the vet because the bunny ate half a magazine. No more knocked over trashcans because we have a bunny that is probably half goat. No more timothy grass floating in the air to make us itchy. No more tooth-torn papers, ripped pajama pants or hair-covered bathroom walls.

No more bunny.

I’d like to think I won’t miss him but I probably will. When something you kind-of like leaves it’s always easy to forget the things that made you happy it left in the first place. If it means anything, I hope he’s going to a good home. At least one with a nice little spot laid out for him next to the john. A rabbit couldn’t ask for more.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous post Winter Camping
Next post Video Review