Newfie June - Killer Bunnies with Great Gnashing Teeth

Any of us who grew up in the era of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" will well remember "the killer bunnies with great, gnashing teeth" (say this with a thick Scottish brogue).

Well, we must have some of these rare creatures living in our neighbourhood.

As any of my readers know by now, we live on a small cul-de-sac. My good friend, Annie, lives two doors down (on the "bulb" of the close; so to speak). She's just a ball of energy and once something has to be done, well…it should have been done yesterday. Her "honey-do" list for her hubby is long but I have to admit that she more than pulls her own weight, inside the house and out.

I'll have to give a little background info before I go any further. You see, back then, right next door to Annie and Bob lived a couple of DINKs (double income/ no kids). They drove nice little sports cars (one each, of course) Their house was always like a show-home (because they had no kids to mess it up like the rest of us did) and they took a nice long vacation somewhere warm every winter (because they didn't have anything else to spend money on but themselves)! Not that we were envious of their freedom and money, mind you. We had been DINKs ourselves once (for about two nanoseconds, I think).

Now, we all got along with the DINKs, they were nice enough people, but we just didn't have a lot in common with them.

To complicate things even further, Annie and Bob had had their first child about a year before this story took place. They had been outside with their little progeny one evening when DINKs came home from work. As they stood there, chatting, the baby started to spit up. This child could projectile vomit like he was Linda Blair in The Excorcist. The first thing that female DINK did was to cry out…"Don't let him vomit on our driveway!"

Now, any parent reading this will understand that this is not the sympathetic response that was expected. In fact Annie and Bob were astonished they were more concerned about a little baby puke on the driveway than about their little guy who was not feeling well. So…you can imagine that relations between the two households were a tad…shall we say…COOL, after that. Again, there just was not much in common at that point.

Now, to give even more important background to the tale, you must understand as well that female DINK liked to garden and, I must say, she did a wonderful job at it. At the side of her house, where her yard shared a property line with Annie and Bob, she had put in a little retaining wall (as their lot was on slightly higher ground) and she had planted out a lovely vegetable garden.

Now, back to the story…as we had had a great spring and early summer that year, female DINK's garden was in prime condition. She had carrots, beets, potatoes, etc. all growing nicely and the stalks were about a foot high. What a lush and lovely array of bright green stems were on display. It was her pride and joy.

It was a lovely, mid-summer Friday afternoon and as I drove into my driveway I waved at Annie, who was on her driveway obviously finishing some yard work. She had one of those big, gas-powered weed-wackers that she was attempting to put away.

After I put the car in the garage, I strolled over to say hello and enjoy a bit of sunshine and a breath of fresh air. As I was walking towards Annie, I realized she looked rather distressed. I asked what was wrong and she blurted out that she had been having trouble with the weed-wacker. It was a made in a proper, ergonomically correct fashion and had the strap that went over your shoulder and around your waist to make it handle easily. The trouble was, with it properly attached to her body, Annie couldn't get the pull necessary on the starter cord to get it going. She was left-handed and this machine did not have the cord situated in a place where a leftie could easily pull it. After many tries she got worried that she would flood the gas engine, so she decided that she had better unhook all of the straps, set the machine down, get a good grip on the cord, let 'er rip and once she got it going, she would wiggle into the harness again and be on her way…whipping and snipping until the garden looked wonderfully pruned. Nice thought…good in principle anyway.

So, as I talked to Annie, she gushed out the story of her plight. It seems that when she was having such trouble starting the weed-wacker, she took the harness off and put the thing on the ground. Unfortunately, she didn't have much better luck as the angle was not right for her to get any good "pull-power" on the cord. So, she decided to set it up on the edge of the retaining wall until she cold get it going. You know what happened next, don't you? It stared right up with a rip and before you could say, " Oh No!", it had buzzed the tops off a swatch of DINK's lovely plants in her vegetable patch!

Poor Annie was in a state. She didn't know what to do and with the way these people didn't like her darling baby…well, what would they think when they saw she had ruined their garden! She was beside herself, the poor thing. I tried to calm her down but it was difficult to keep the smile off my face. What I really wanted to do was roll on the ground laughing. I couldn't do that of course, it wasn't funny to Annie but you had to see the look on her face. It was priceless. She put the offensive machine away, without ever finishing the garden trimming and with a dejected slump to her shoulders; she went into her house to contemplate how she would approach the dreaded conversation.

Annie procrastinated that evening and decided to leave her confession until the next day. Next morning, she had steeled herself and was going to face the music. She had just gone outside to make the dreaded walk to the neighbour's door, when she met them coming outside themselves. Before Annie could get a word out, female DINK blurts out, "We have to do something about these wild rabbits that run around the fields near here! Did you see what they did to my vegetable patch? We are just going out to the home improvement store to get some wire mesh to cover the patch. I'm determined to keep them out of here. We should sign a petition and submit it to the City to have them come trap these creatures!"

Annie bit her lip and didn't say anything. She was so surprised by what she had heard that she didn't know how to respond. You see, there were wild rabbits in our neighbourhood and they did occasionally nibble on the tops of some plants and shrubs. What to do! This was an easy way out - just handed to her. She didn't lie…she simply had to stay quiet… but it wasn't the truth, was it? For a good Christian girl, this was a dilemma.

So, she waited and stewed over the situation for a few days. Eventually, she took the coward's way out and decided that it would be more prudent, for neighbour relations, if she left well enough alone.

For those of us that knew the truth, it was hysterical. Every time we saw one of the wild rabbits on one of our lawns, we would howl with laughter. They became know as the bunnies with great, gnashing teeth.

The DINKs did go on to have a bountiful harvest that year, anyway. The stems all grew back and some plants even thickened up due to the "pruning" they had received. A year later, they sold their house on our close and moved to an even bigger and better abode (and I'm sure it was a neighbourhood without wild bunnies hopping around).

Bob hides the weed-wackers and forbids Annie from touching them again. And the tale of the "killer bunny with the great, gnashing teeth", has become yet another neighbourhood legend.

Cheers,

© Newfie June




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