Velociworld

Killer Rabbits

Consider this a late Easter tale, a cautionary tale. The Senator suffered from a mild case of adult diabetes, diet-controlled, meaning he merely had to stay away from sugar as a rule. The old man had a Sweet Tooth to match his Liquor Tooth, however, a matched set, and he was envious of our Easter bounty.

My mother always bestowed upon us kids, as the pinnacle of the basket, a huge chocolate rabbit. Not one of those hollow ones, but a ten inch tall solid milk chocolate bunny. The kind a child could gnaw on for a week, and stay in a blissful autistic sugar coma the whole while. I swear we were always a rabbit or two from insulin shock, and dialysis.

Now, since the Senator couldn't enjoy such goodness, he would go upstairs and brood a bit. Then, in the middle of the night, he would slip out of bed, no doubt mix a knock or two, and rifle the baskets for a pristine bunny. My mother would awaken the next morning to a passed out Senator, all asnore, with the wretched remains of a chocolate rabbit on his bedside table. He couldn't eat the whole thing, of course, but christamighty he'd eat half of one. A pound or so. Always started with the ears and worked his way down.

And so one of us would check their basket on a Monday morning to find an AWOL bunny, and we would traipse upstairs together, the five of us, to see what damage had been done.

A chocolate rabbit torso is a sad sight, indeed, even with feet intact. It's like a crime scene. They didn't have yellow tape back then, but it would have been an excellent idea to rope off the old man with DO NOT CROSS ribbon, and taken a picture or two.