Morning of the Lepus

Who here remembers that classically bad monster movie from the 1970s, Night of the Lepus, wherein giant rabbits the size of Winnebagos menaced some dusty burg in northeastern Arizona?

Well, today we had Morning of the Lepus, wherein rabbits the size of large bagels menaced a dusty burg in central Arizona. I got up this morning and let the Dawg out to do her business, and as usual she flushed three or four tiny little rabbits in the back yard. Dawg snorted and put on speed to try to catch them, and the rabbits scattered in all directions. Soon came the disheartening sodden splash of a small rabbit falling into the swimming pool (apparently in the throes of escape-lust rabbits imagine they can leap all the way across the pool, only they can't).

So I hot-footed it outside and grabbed the net. I didn't want the rabbit to croak, and I didn't want a dead rabbit in the pool in general. Fortunately rabbits can swim, so the rabbit was still on the surface and kicking when I got to it. Did I say "fortunately"? I meant "unfortunately" because the little bastard kept swimming away from the net.

Morning is not my best time. Early morning is especially not my best time. Early morning on the Sunday after chemo is especially bad, because my legs don't seem to work right and I feel as though I weigh about 900 pounds. So I kept trying to fish the rabbit out of the pool with the net, and I kept failing, partially because of poor judgment and crappy motor skills, and partially because the rabbit was trying to avoid the net.

At this point while trying to net the rabbit I lost my balance. While the rabbit chuckled in sinister fashion I fell over backwards into the garden, crushing the garden fence flat and filling the seat of my trousers and the back of my shirt with about forty thousand thorns. I'm glad I didn't fall on the trowel, that's all I can say. Or, heaven forbid, one of the short fence posts. That would have taken some explaining in the Emergency Room.

Jean saw me gadding about in the back yard and came out, armed with a large basket, thinking perhaps that we could corner the errant bunny between us and scoop him out. Eventually we did and the soaked and exhausted rabbit staggered away, his little shoes squelching, his ears sagging and bedraggled. I staggered away, picking thorns out of my butt and heartily cursing in a generic and non-specific manner.

Dawgs, rabbits, swimmng pools and chemo - it don't get no funner than that. Now you'll excuse me while I go pick more thorns out of my butt.