Everything I know, I learned from a rabbit.
Okay you’re right, that’s ridiculous. I’ll fix it:
Everything I know, I learned from several rabbits.
I could write a novel about each one, and I’ve had the privilege of tending to four. But we don’t have time for a Lord Of The Rings-type series here, so I’ll tell you about how I met my second rabbit. We must start, though, with the first.
Niels was a misguided project in stealth, who came into my life during a depression. I purchased him, which is gross, for thirty dollars from a pet shop in a mall that had a “money back” guarantee if he didn’t make it thirty days. I snuck him into my dorm room, a definite rule violation (and if you know me, you know I LOVE rules), and kept him there all school year. Whenever my RA knocked, I feared he’d startle and make noise and we’d be discovered and I’d be expelled et cetera. It wasn’t until a whole year and a new apartment later that I discovered he was, completely and indisputably, deaf.
He reminded me that I was important—that it was finally necessary to care for someone so small and helpless. (Oh, and I needed to care for a brave and tiny rabbit, too).
I wanted more of that same thing, so I made a call to adopt Miss Milly. She was going to be Niels’s girlfriend, and she sure was beautiful in those blurry flip phone pictures I received. She was grace, she was elegance, she was affordable, and she so happened to be the one I found on the university classifieds that day.
When I arrived to pick her eminence up from a grubby apartment by the college stadium, it was immediately apparent that this one-year-old bunny was anatomically very much a male bunny. Like, it was really apparent. I paid an indifferent man ten dollars, he loaded the terrified rabbit’s cage into my car, and as I drove away, I promised the bun the whole ride that I’d give him a good home and find him a good name.
So Milly became Rorschach. Rory, for short, which admirers thought I’d chosen because of Gilmore Girls. I bemoaned those comments, and I also bemoaned him. This fierce boy attacked my sweet Niels. He destroyed things, and ate everything. Due to a scheduling conflict, he narrowly escaped being re-adopted by a friend of mine. He fell down a hole in my kitchen cabinet, spent the night in my downstairs neighbor Lucy’s cabinet crawlspace, and was returned to me unscathed the next morning by a maintenance man.
He got fixed, and emerged as the most noble creature I have ever met without losing too much of his rambunction. He’s lived in six apartments, seen me in every emotional state, and crossed the country in a tiny Honda Civic without helping with the drive even once. He is selfish and selfless, and has escaped death a dozen times in his eleven years. He is my heart, covered in fur and chewing at apartment baseboards.
All this to say: happy birthday Rorschachistanislov Bunathian Shadowpax Danger McGowan Torres.
Would love for you to stick around for another one, bud.
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, and OF COURSE snuggle with the man, the myth, the legend: the poopmaster himself.