tell me about the rabbits, George

So, I'm still dog-sitting. And I don't know why Mocha hates me and wants me to kill myself. Why ELSE would she bark and bark and bark and bark when IT IS CLEARLY TIME TO SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP.

Ahem. So. I'm sleepy. This is pretty standard for . . . well, any day, really. But at least it's Friday. FRIDAY. And I have no obligations whatsoever this weekend, unless you count a movie and ice cream and mini-golf as obligations but I DON'T. I call those . . . I don't know, something else that doesn't mean obligation. Whatever. Shut up, I'm tired.

Every morning, as I leave my aunt and uncle's house to go to work, there are bunnies in the front yard. Sometimes just one, but SOMETIMES there are two. But they always run away from me. I tried to avoid eye contact, all "I'm not going to hurt you, tiny bunny, I love you and want to be your friend," but they run away anyway. I don't understand, bunnies, WHY? Why won't you love me?

When I was in 4th or 5th grade (like I remember which one), my class went to the park for a picnic on the last day of school. As we were walking from the park back to the school building, I noticed some boys kneeling around this patch of tall grass, poking at something. I went over and saw they were messing around with a rabbit nest, and that there were tiny, tiny bunnies inside. No big bunnies, just babies, with their eyes closed and everything.

Well. I got a little irate, put my hands on my hips, and told those boys to get the fuck away from those bunnies (note: I did not say fuck back then) and THEN I got really irate because I thought, "now this nest smells like stinky human boys and the mom bunny is never going to come back." PLUS ALSO, they'd moved the nest all around from somewhere else. Stupid human boys. And so I marched myself up to the school, asked for a box, and I took those bunnies home, nest and all. I'm pretty sure now that the whole thing about how if baby bunnies smell like humans, the mom won't come back is completely false, but what do you want? I was like 10. What's a 10-year-old know?

I don't remember exactly what happened next, but I imagine it involved a phone call to my mom that went something like this:

Me: Hi, Mom.
Mom: Hi, Jennie, how was school?
Me: Good . . .
Mom: What is it?
Me: Um. I found some baby bunnies and brought them home.
Mom: What?
Me: THESE BOYS WERE MESSING WITH THEM AND I DIDN'T WANT THE MOM TO NOT TAKE CARE OF THEM ANYMORE, SO I BROUGHT THEM HOME AND THEY'RE IN A BOX ON THE BACK PORCH BECAUSE THESE BOYS WERE MESSING WITH THEM, MOM!
Mom: Sigh.

In any case, we fed them with an eye dropper and took them to a rescue wildlife center. This wasn't the first time we'd nursed baby animals. My mom found baby squirrels in the backyard that had fallen out of the nest and we took care of those, too. Also, I used to bring home stray dogs and put them in the garage, and have more fun phone conversations with my mom:

Me: Hi, Mom.
Mom: Hello, Jennie. What are you doing?
Me: Nothing.
Mom: Jennie . . .
Me: Um, I found this dog while I was riding my bike, so I brought him home. He's in the garage.
Mom: Jennie.
Me: He's really cute and nice! He has white fur! And I named him Frank!
Mom: Jennie, is he wearing a collar?
Me: . . . yes.
Mom: Does the collar have tags on it?
Me: . . . yes.
Mom: Jennie, that is someone's dog. Go let it out of the garage.
Me: But!
Mom: Jennie.
Me: OK.

That is a (mostly) true story. I say mostly because I can barely remember last week, let alone 16 years ago.