Thumper Gets Saved

WAI HALLO THAR. What's that? You're wondering what this is? OH, well this here's a tiny little desert cottontail rabbit! I rescued him from the JAWS OF DEATH.

AKA my cat.



If you're anybody who is anybody, then you already know this story. If you don't, then you're probably nobody who is nobody OR you weren't there for my recounting of my EPIC HEROISM. It's ok, I'm sure you had something important to do, like saving a puppy from a burning building. Your un-knowledge is forgiven.

So there I was, groggily rolling out of bed after little more than 5 hours of sleep and duly wondering if today was going to be a good day, when SUDDENLY, actually wait, no. I rolled our of bed, went into my bathroom for da showerz of da day, when SUDDENLY….

“Squeeeeeaak! Squeeekakafdjksal!”

Holy shizzle sticks, something is dying in my shower!

My half dead brain somehow managed to remember the fact that just yesterday, a terrible crime had been discovered right in front of my door – there, in a little puddle of blood, lay a tiny rabbit’s foot and what looked like a piece of liver. OH NOES. MORE DEATH. WAAAAI.

I donned my superhero cape, tightened my tights, and painted the roses red, anticipating the horrid scene which I was sure could be found right on the other side of my door. There she was, like some terrible hawk, flitting and dipping her paws behind random things in our front patio – a large, blue ornamental vase, two pavers, the corner where a wall and door met. A round, brown ball squeaked in fear and hopped away between my cat’s claws, fighting for his life like a brave astronaut or a tile installer.

“No!” I roared, drawing my wand from the confines of my hidden crotch pocket. Endowed with the cold fury that accompanies any saving endeavor of mine (I apparently save endangered things a lot), my voice was loud and my spell so strong, my cat literally flew up and crashed down like a bouncing, white ferret, standing up to reveal a bloody nose, a black eye, and a cancelled gym membership. She wiped her nose with the back of her paw, staining her spectacular snowy fur bloody scarlet. She then shook her fist at me, gave a look of intense EVOL, swore vengeance, and told me my hair looked like crap. I responded by not responding, choosing instead to scoop the frightened little creature up into my manly hand of manliness.

“Oh, you poor thing!” I cried, hurriedly cupping the desert rabbit between my hands and rocking him, and petting him, and comforting his poor, troubled soul. His heart beat wildly in his miniature ribcage, and I was relieved, and happy, and oddly annoyed too because I really sorta needed to take a shower but I OBVIOUSLY couldn’t just release the bunny into the WILD without 1) walking far enough away where my cat wouldn’t re-find him and 2) without showing the family, especially my little sister who was absolutely pissed when she found out the cat killed a rabbit.

(Let’s ignore the fact that her own mother and father absolutely ADORE the taste of rabbit. Yes, let’s leave that out of this.)

Eventually, though I know it’s not cool to wake people up, I wake up my sister because she’s little and doesn’t care if we ruin her sleep and because she freaking loves when we catch random animals that my cat tried to kill and show them to her.

(Once, I caught this adorable red-breasted finch bird – it was so cute! Its wing was twisted, and it was unable to fly for several hours, but eventually he got tired of hopping around the courtyard and I got tired of watching him, and we both eventually decided it was best if he went on his way; he limp-flied away, high enough into the branches to ensure LIFE.)

She freaks out and is like, “BUNNY!” cause she’s five and she can still spaz like that, then I show my brother, who basically spent the last day and a half vomiting out his insides but didn’t care if I woke him up because he apparently also likes seeing animals that the cat nearly killed but didn’t.

Then my mom saw him and decided not to let him go until at least dusk. Cause everyone automatically loves him.

And my dad, who basically hates animals, was like, “Wow, he’s pretty.” Yeah. My father. Manly man of manliness. It was just THAT CUTE.

Thus was borne the tale of Thumper, the incredible hopping baby rabbit that I saved from the JAWS OF DEATH. He spent his day in the Rahlia household, chilling in a cardboard box. Weird little dude. No matter how much we urged him to eat foods we put in the center of the box, the bunny just kept edging towards the corner until his twitchy nose was facing the wall, acting like we’d forced him into time out.

Interesting cottontail fact: They eat their own feces. Yeah. They do. It’s to gain the nutritional value that they didn’t acquire during the first digestion. Green poop = LET’S DO IT AGAIN, Brown poop = GLARG, I just came off the tilt-o-whirl and I have no nutritional value left. Basically: DON’T EAT BROWN POOP, JUST GREEN.

Which explained why he didn’t eat the poop he left in the box. It was brown, and also about 1/100th the size of a domesticated full grown rabbit’s poop.

We released him into the WILD (aka my neighborhood where these rabbits live for some reason), made sure he had no Stockholm Syndrome (he did not, quickly running away as we pursued him to check for the syndrome), and returned home with an empty box and a bit of an empty heart.

Man, I miss him.



Oh yes. Anyone know that African GIRL who won a really important race and set a record or something? Well, she apparently looks like a dude so they're like, "Let's test her for manlinessness!" and claimed she was a man because she had more male hormones than female hormones despite the fact that she has lady parts down there.

JESUS CHRIST, WHUT. Let her take the medal, for poop's sake! Nobody would care about that race if it wasn't for her anyway. No, seriously, I really wouldn't even know it had occurred if it wasn't for Miss Mann. Jebus!



EDIT: I just remembered. At one point, I decided to take the rabbit into my room, wanting to stick him in something so I could shower but not lose him to the JAWS OF DEATH, and I decided my Disneyland Mad Hatter hat was an appropriate rabbit receptacle. But then he started running around in it, and I started thinking maybe he'd poop in my hat, and then I pulled him out.

GET IT? HAHA. I'M CLEVER.