Bugs Bunnies

I was tired. Kids were crowding around me while I was sitting on the picnic table, asking for stories. I have a cough, so I didn't feel like talking to the kids extensively. All of a sudden one of the kids screamed "WHAT IS THAT?!"

I turned, thinking it was a kid reacting to an ant on the picnic table. I saw a little creature come out from under my butt, underneath the seat of the picnic table. It looked like a pathetic rodent. Upon quick closer inspection I found out it was a baby bunny. Like pure, fresh out of the womb, baby bunny. It couldn't even walk. It looked blind. It looked scared out of its wits.

I yelled "EVERYONE STOP! DON'T MOVE!!" Of course, the kids picked up on me looking at something and ran over. The entire playground of pre-schoolers ran over to see what the matter was. I'm pretty sure the bunny was stepped on at least once due to kids running around. Another teacher became privy to the knowledge and started rounding them up away from me. I pushed the bunny back under the table asking for a bucket and some latex gloves. The bunny nestled underneath a table leg, hiding. Kids kept coming over. We were all literally screaming "STAY BACK GODDAMMIT!!!"

I dug underneath the table and pushed the bunny out carefully and picked it up and put it in one of our sandbox buckets. I then opened our playground gate, traversing a crowd of children actually reaching up and trying to steal the bucket away. The Id and Ego thing is completely true with children. There's no fucking control of impulse. Again we were screaming "KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY!!!"

I'm pretty sure the hustle and bustle would have killed that little guy. The kids would have ripped it to shreds. I'm not kidding.

I put it in some nearby bushes, got a dish of water, cut an apple up and put everything just outside the bucket. Keeping an eye on it from the playground, I thought the ordeal was over. A kid came up to the table and said "THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!!!"

I yelled "WHAT?!" I went over, looked down, saw only gray fur. As in, disembodied fur. It looked like dust. I didn't think anything of it, thinking that's what he was talking about. I said "It's nothing!"

The kid pointed again "AHHH!! IT MOVED!!! THEY MOVED!!! LOOK AT THEM!!"

I followed his finger. More kids started screaming.

Underneath a table leg, the one I hadn't been working to push the little rabbit out from under, was a rabbit nest. Five tiny bunnies were nestled in a pile of woodchips and gray fur. They were stroking themselves, seemingly unaware of the peril traversing every which way around them. I quick got the bucket I had left in the bushes, complete with the dish and apple, and put the baby bunny back with its siblings. We rounded the kids up and put them inside, fearing for the nest's safety. The kids were still going apeshit all afternoon. The energy from the teachers wanting to protect the rabbits were being sucked into the kids, coming out in a form of complete chaos.

The thing that scared me was the fact that the first bunny, upon closer inspection, was covered in crawling bugs. Little lice looking insects crawled in and out of the fur. After dumping the bunny back with its family, I tried killing a bug that was left over. After my lice debacle last year anything resembling lice or fleas deserves to die. No questions asked. Their kind failed to gain my empathy. It jumped all over the bucket. I think it may have had wings, but I wasn't sure.

All I know is that if I get lice again right as I quit my job due to this stupid nest, I just know everyone I'm close to will say "I totally saw that one coming."





Deerhoof -- "Gore in Beans"