My Checkered Past

Despite my excellent breeding, charming personality, good looks, and meticulous personal hygiene, I have not always lived the life of luxury to which I have grown accustomed. In fact, I dare say my personal history is a cautionary tale of how even the best among us can and do fall from grace. You see, as hard as it may be to believe, I was once homeless.

Yes, I was a victim of the Great Recession. As a young bun, I was adopted into a warren with a nice companion who provided me with adequate nourishment and social activity. However, my burrowmate was rarely around to spend time with me, as she was forced to spend more and more time out of the burrow foraging for food. Now, we buns crave constant attention and companionship, and I was growing weary with the arrangement, and I believe the strain of seeing me lonely and forlorn each evening led my companion to take the drastic step of abandoning me in disgrace at the City Animal Shelter.

I was still quite a young bun at the time, and my memories of my time spent at the shelter are vague; perhaps I have already blocked most of the horrors from my mind. However, I do remember spending days in a cold metal cell, with no opportunity to snuggle up with a companion and share body heat, much less to receive a good head rub or ear scratch. Visitors would occasionally release me into a small pen where I would do my best to stretch my legs and get some much-needed exercise; however, I was always wary, as we rabbits were not the only animals in this part of the shelter. No, I was relegated to something called the Small Animal Room, in which were housed, along with about a dozen or so sad and lonely rabbits, several guinea pigs, rats, mice, and various kinds of birds and fowl. Now, I am an open-minded bun, and I did not on principle mind sharing space with these various species, although the young male rats did sometimes look rather lasciviously in my direction; but one creature in particular was my nemesis: the Giant Rooster. I have no idea what such a creature was doing living in the city in the first place; it seems a ridiculous place for such a large and loud barnyard animal to reside. And yet, there he was in the City Animal Shelter: nearly two feet high at his ruddy crest, easily eight pounds of pure, dimwitted machismo, and with an earsplittingly loud crow which reverberated at irregular intervals off the metallic walls of the Small Animal Room. Needless to say, I was aghast at the sight and sound of this particular burrowmate. Little did I know, however, that he would play a key role in uniting me with my future Food Lady.

You see, occasionally visitors looking for new burrowmates would enter the Small Animal Room and be inspected by one or more of its residents. The visitor would be placed in one of the recreation pens, and shelter residents would take turns inspecting the visitor to see if a good match would be made. I myself inspected several visitors in this fashion, but was never particularly impressed. Then, one day, my Food Lady appeared and sat in the recreation pen with some of the other rabbits. At this point in my incarceration, I admit that I had grown rather despondent and withdrawn. I had more or less given up hope that I would once again have my own burrow with my own thoughtful burrowmates to dote on me and bring me tender greens. Thus I gave the young female visitor little attention, assuming she would leave empty-handed, as had so many other visitors before her.

When I was placed in the pen with this visitor, I paid her little mind at first, as I was more interested in attempting to stretch and tone my cramped legs. She did offer me some delicious parsley, which I of course accepted politely. I was guarded, however, because the dreaded Giant Rooster so happened to also be taking his recreation at that time. (The poultry were never placed in recreation pens, of course, since they would just flap their way out of them at will). I was cautiously examining the perimeter of the pen when, for no apparent reason at all, the Giant Rooster flapped up and into my pen, and began to pummel my visitor with his scaly, clawed feet and wings! Being a valiant bun, I instantly leapt to defend the visitor, but realizing that I was no match for the awful bird, I instead moved into defensive posturing behind her back. In that moment, I knew: I had to get that poor visitor out of there and safely back to her burrow so that she would never be attacked by the rooster again! I made it clear to my attendants that I had chosen this one as my new companion, and we were both safely back in our new burrow within that same day.

In retrospect, perhaps that old Giant Rooster was not so much my nemesis as a strange incarnation of Destiny. For without his intervention, I might never have decided to go with my Food Lady back to her burrow. Life works in funny ways; I for one think my brush with transience has made me a better bun, more appreciative of the finer things in life, and of course I now have my Food Lady to rub between my ears and provide me with delicious, organically-grown, local delicacies at my slightest demand. In fact, I think it's getting to be about dinner time; I think I'll go chew on something until she gets the hint!

Yours Truly,
Parsley
xoxox