The Great Bunny Bash

Back in November and December I blogged about my year in hell as a Mall Santa. I made mention then that I also donned the rabbit suit and portrayed the Easter Bunny.

Beign that it is the seventh of March, spring is officially only two weeks away, and Easter is just a hope farther away, this seems like a good day to tell one of my Bunny Funnies.

I'll start by saying I enjoyed playing the Easter Bunny a thousand times more than I did Santa. The parents were a thousand times more relaxed, the crowds were much thinner, and being locked away inside the rabbit suit provide a bit of anonymity that the beard and padded red suit did not provide.

One huge drawback however was the heat. There were times that the interior of the rabbit head was hot enough to bake biscuits in. Especially when the sun wuld bean in through the glass skylight of the mall.

Also my friend and former boss, that ran the operation had to special order a longer suit for me and even with that the pants were barely long enough to reach me furry feet so the suit gave me a constant wedgie. And let me tell you digging a cottonball out of your crack can get mighty tiresome. Not to mention traumatizing for any kids watching.

Actually my size alone scared lots of the kids so most of the time I remained seated in my pastel throne to neutralize my height. I'm six-five, but the way the head worked was that the wearer looked out through a screen mesh behind the bunny's bucked teeth. That meant with the long face and giant ears the tip of my version of the Easter Bunny towered in right at NINE FEET TALL. That's a long way up for a little kid. Now you know why I sat when I could.

The year I did this there were two of us that worked the evening shift. Myself, and an older fellow, named Clyde, who was a postal supervisor by day. Clyde wasn't my boss but we worked near each other and got along just fine. Least we did before The Bunny Bashing Episode.

Here's how it went down ...

It was a slow weekday night. Unlike with Santa parents didn't keep their small children out late just to see the Easter Bunny. But as usual there were quit a few teens meandering around the mall and a couple of fifteen or sixteen year old boys ended up leaning against the white picket fence that surrounded the bunny throne.

After a bit they started heckling me.

"Hey you!" One of them shouted. "The dude in the rabbit suit!"

Galen, the man who took the pictures and ran things was busy talking to the only customer we'd had in half an hour. His focus was on hte pictures he was trying to print.

"Hey you! What kind of dork wears a rabbit suit?" the boys laughed. "Little doofus cottontail! I asked you a question.What kind of dork wears a rabbit suit?"

I stood up.

"Ooooh a big dork." They laughed again.

Ever so slyly I waved at the lone little girl to my left with one hand while using my giant head to hide the other hand I flipped a bird at the two boys.

"Ahhh, you just got dissed by the Easter bunny," said the one who'd kept quiet.
"Did you flip me off?"

Still waving again I did it again to remove any doubt to what they had seen.

They one boy slapped the other on the back and teased him as they walked away.

But, that is not where this story ends.

Two mornings later, I'm sittting at the break room at work when Clyde walks in. His head is listing to one side like a sinking ship as he sits down across from me and says, "Be glad you didn't have last night's shift."

"Why? Was y'all busy?"
"No, I got attacked."

Just as we we closing a teenage boy ran up and started punching. And with that top heavy head I couldn't maintain my balance, much less see him. He must hav ehit me a dozen times before Galen chased him off." Clyde slowly kneed his sore neck. "I don't even know what he was yelling about. Something about me flipping him."

Yes, once I stopped laughing I did confess my crime, and these days me and Clyde still laugh about him taking one for the team.



By the way I have one more really good Easter Bunny story and then maybe another post of humorous anecdotes and one-liners. I'll try to get them up within the next few weeks.

Also, I've gotten a few emails lately asking if any of my stories are available in print. The only bit of my work still available for human consumption is the short story I sold to Underground Voices late last year. Click here to read it , if you missed the link the first time around.