I set out to buy my young daughter a calendar for the new year. Driving to the store I thought about the monthly themes that she might prefer. Hmmm, maybe frolicking kitties, cute and huggable puppies, or pictures of rainbows and unicorns. Just thinking about the photos or drawings and her reactions to them each month kind of warmed me up inside. I ended up going to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, which has a pretty decent selection. After making a first visual pass over the offerings, some twisted, warped part of me strayed away from kitties, puppies, and unicorns to bunnies. I can hear you say
"but bunnies are cute and fluffy too". The problem is the calendar that I picked out was called
"The 2009 Calendar of Bunny Suicides" by Andy Riley. (That should put to rest the rumors of my insanity.) But seriously, who would not crumble a little inside considering the plight of these poor, disheartened creatures? As one
reviewer put it, maybe they are tired of their media image being limited to (a) wisecrackers like Bugs Bunny, (b) gibbering fools like Roger Rabbit, (c) soft-hearted sidekicks like Thumper, or (d) samurai warriors like Usagi Yojimbo.
Looking over the depictions, we see images of a lost bunny feeding himself to a venus flytrap, another trying to cleave himself with a knife attached to a remote-control truck, one about to be pressed wafer thin by an approaching bobsled. Where will the madness end? Perhaps we should enlist old Jerry Lewis (who I understand is much loved by the French people) to help emcee a dedicated telethon? Isn't there something that could be done for these poor souls? While I ponder on this subject a bit longer, I will have to be content to study my daughter's calendar in more detail and try to force myself not to smile.
