The Energizer Bunnies

I rushed from the kitchen to the living room when an object in the center of the oriental rug stopped me in my tracks. 

“WHAT THE—?”

The kids had just started saying their prayers, and I like to be physically and mentally present for those, even though Lou’s prayers are long. They always include a litany of every person and animal he’s ever encountered and sometimes a brief description of the most mundane events of his day, which, for Lou, are often also the highlights of his day.

He was mid-litany, “and Wally in heaven and Rocket and FishyBoy and…,” when my brain registered what the dark object on the rug actually was.

I interrupted Lou’s devout benediction with an emphatic, “OH MY GROSS!” and pointed at the rug.

“Oh, yeah. I saw that earlier,” Nate said with a combination of apathy and pre-adolescent disdain. 

Meanwhile, I was incredulous and livid, and I didn’t feel like I was overreacting.

“You saw a dead bunny on the floor of our living room and didn’t think to do or say anything about it?” I chastised him.

“I forgot,” he shrugged.

“It’s a dead bunny!”

By this point, prayers were officially on pause, as everyone had stood up to see the carcass. 

“That’s one of our bunnies!” Lou shouted, pointing and looking to Tess for confirmation. 

“Is it still alive?” Tighe asked, approaching with caution.

I put my hands on the tops of my knees and squatted closer to get a better look.

“No, it’s definitely dead. Rocket must have brought it in earlier. How long have we had a dead bunny inside our house?!”

Our bunny saga had begun in the early evening five days earlier. I was making dinner, stirring something or other at the stove. Tighe was coaching Nate’s football practice, Tess was doodling at the dining room table, and Sam was seated across from her “doing homework*” on my laptop.

Lou, ever the budding athlete and natural outdoorsman, was in the backyard. Lou would live outside if we let him. And I’d really like to let him. He alternates between practicing his golf swing, boxing on the heavy bag we’ve dangled from the porch roof, practicing lacrosse, practicing t-ball, stalking around to patrol the backyard perimeter with Rocket, riding his bike, digging in the dirt, rearranging the patio furniture, cleaning the grill, and so much more. 

He’s always busy, so I think nothing of it when he’s out there for long periods of time, no matter the weather.

This particular day, it was hot and sunny, and he’d already come in a handful of times to ask for his favorite refreshment, chocolate milk on ice. But suddenly, he busted through the back door into the kitchen with an overabundance of his characteristic joy and enthusiasm. 

“Look what I found!”

I could barely hear him above the Taylor Swift music blaring from Tess’s bluetooth speaker, but I pulled my eyes away from the chicken searing on the pan to at least pretend to match his excitement.

But when I saw what was in his hands, I shrieked. 

Like a banshee.

Like louder and higher-pitched than I’ve ever screamed before.

To the point that, when things calmed down a half hour later, my throat was sore. From my own scream.

It was a baby bunny. 

And it was very much alive, squirming in Lou’s eager little hands.

“Get out! Get it out! Out of the house!”

And again, despite my panic and volume, I maintain that I did not overreact in this instance. 

Long time readers—I really mean it when I say long time because this was almost a decade ago—will recall the tale of the chipmunk who accidentally slipped through an open patio door and couldn’t escape from the house for more than 36 hours. Yes, chipmunks are small and relatively harmless, but for me, Sam, and Nate, it was a harrowing ordeal. 

At one point, around 3am, it found its way into our bed, startling me awake and I kicked it away with my leg, flinging it against the wall, landing it on the ground with a thud. Tighe and I, not even knowing what it was at the time, sealed off our bedroom, sought refuge on the living room couch, and hoped for a few more hours of sleep that never came. The scratching and scurrying noises above us were too unsettling. The next afternoon, when I finally managed to track it and usher it out of the very same door through which it had entered, toddler Sam, cowering from a safe space in the bathtub, fainted. Like literally just fainted.

So, forgive my PTSD and my very terrified response when Lou tried to gift me a baby bunny as I tried to prepare a nice nutritious meal for my family.

I do not need another rodent—are bunnies rodents?—trapped in my house.

Lou, startled by my lack of appreciation for his living trophy, backed out the kitchen door and pulled it closed behind him. 

“Sorry, buddy, I don’t know what her problem is,” I imagined him whispering, trying his best to soothe the bunny, who was likely having his own simultaneous panic attack.

While I took deep, calming breaths, trying to erase the chipmunk flashbacks from my brain, Sam and Tess came bounding into the kitchen.

“What happened?” 

“Lou… got a bunny… tried to bring it inside…” I was gasping for breath, trying to slow my heart rate as my eyes rolled back towards the ceiling.

Accurately sensing that I was having a moment, they inched past me, slipping out the back door after Lou.

I took another moment to compose myself and followed them outside.

“Lou. Where did you get the bunny?”

“Right there!” He pointed. He was so proud.

“Okay,” I said calmly, “A bunny is fine. We just can’t have it in the house.”

He had pointed to a spot in the middle of the yard, where Rocket sprawled out in the grass. 

Why are bunnies so dumb? I thought to myself. Year after year, they build these very vulnerable nests in the grass. Do they not realize we have a pit bull? Burglars stay away. Delivery (wo)men stay away. Heck, the mailman even trembles a bit when our front door is ajar. Why do bunnies insist on being here?

I strolled across and found that Rocket was holding another baby bunny hostage. It was also still alive, he seemed to be befriending it. 

“Another one!” I called to the kids and shooed Rocket away.

“I’ll get it!” Tess staked her claim, rushing over to scoop up the baby bunny. 

“Take them out to the front yard, where they’ll be safe from Rocket!” 

“Can we keep them?”

“Sure,” I relented, knowing full well that they’d likely not survive the night. Coyotes. Foxes. Feral cats. Starvation. Dysentery. There are really a million ways to die out there on the prairie. They’d be dead by morning. 

But Lou and Tess and Sam were thrilled with their temporary pets. They spent the next hour, building shelters out of shoeboxes and sticks, sprinkling in bits of celery and setting out bowls of water. Whatever keeps them busy. 

And I got periodic, unsolicited, updates. 

“Mom! They’re sleeping!” Lou reported at one point.

“Mmm, good,” I said, feigning the mildest interest. I assumed the bunnies were in shock or even already dead. I didn’t examine them for injuries, but I thought even one or two puncture wounds from Rocket’s teeth could be fatal for these little guys.

“I think they’re just so tired from wrestling with Rocket, so now they’re asleep!”

“Wrestling with Rocket? They’re definitely dead,” I muttered to myself.

But I was wrong.

Tess and Lou spent the rest of the night darting in and out of the house to fetch more supplies and tend to their new pets. Sam lost interest when I told him we couldn’t sell them.

“We can’t sell animals that aren’t ours, especially since they’re on the verge of death.”

But they lived for four more days. They were the first thing the kids checked for when they woke up in the morning and got home from school in the afternoons. 

“How are they still alive?” I gripped Tighe’s forearm one night at dinner, whispering my incredulity. 

And soon, they weren’t. Or at least one of them wasn’t. It was missing at least, no longer sheltering in place under the thatched roof the kids had made. Then, the next morning, the other one was unaccounted for. 

That evening, just before we sat down to say prayers, apparently, the corpse of one of the two bunnies—or maybe a third bunny we hadn’t even met yet—materialized on our living room floor.

After a brief, very ceremonious funeral—really, it was more of a dumping—we prayed for the bunny’s soul. Or at least, Lou did.