“It was my sister’s rabbit,” she said, holding out a shoebox that served as the bunny’s coffin. I already had a shovel in my hand and a mildly bemused look on my face. And for the next half hour, dressed in nice clothes and wearing dress shoes, likely reeking of cheap cologne, and with absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever, I dug a small hole in the back yard and laid a family pet to rest.
This was not the date I was expecting.
But you do what ya gotta do. That’s the way I was raised. Life sometimes throws unexpected, maybe even unwanted things your way. Bizarre things that maybe you should question, or look at more closely. But you don’t.
Sometimes, even when you were expecting a date with a pretty girl, you end up burying the bunny.
Not a euphemism.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this was all part of a plot. It was the result of regret. She hadn’t wanted to go out after all. Or she had changed her mind after saying yes, and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. And so, taking the problem to my friends, she got some advice.
“Make him bury the rabbit.”
That would turn me off for sure, wouldn’t it? That would send me down a rabbit trail—puns... love the puns—and from there, from that gloomy and depressing and downer moment, it would be easy to wriggle free from the burden of having to go out with me.
Fine, fine. Except...
Call me naive. Call me obtuse. Call me clueless. It never occurred to me to see burying that rabbit as a reason to end the date.
What I saw was a need, and a chance to show that I was someone who would help, and stand up, and do the thing that needed to be done, even if it wasn’t what I came to do. Even if it wasn’t pretty. Even if it involved something sad and depressing and kind of a downer.
I buried that bunny, and then I stuck around. I consoled. I said kind things, and I offered to do more. I hung out. The date wasn’t dinner or a movie now, it was just me, her, and her little sister, all commiserating over the death of a pet.
But basically, I didn’t take the hint. And I didn’t leave. I just had a weird date, that’s all.
It was months later before I learned that there’d been a conspiracy to try to bum me out enough to walk away. And if I’m being honest... well, it kind of sucked to hear it. It hurt a little. I felt like a fool.
But now, thirty years later, married to an amazing woman and living a life of travel and writing and joy, how could I be upset or hold a grudge over something like that? Truthfully, I’ve only thought about that bunny a few times over the past three decades. I left the bunny, and kept most of those friends. The girl went on to have her own wonderful life, too. Everyone came out ok.
Except the bunny.
A Note at the End
I don’t know if she’ll read this, or if any of the friends in question will, but if so I should make it clear—I don’t hold any grudges, and I don’t think less of any of them. In fact, this story is pretty funny. Kind of rude, but funny. Ha ha. I mean it.
We have lots of stories like this in our lives, right? No? Just me? That tracks.
What’s your most awkward story that ended up turning out ok?
Over 44 years ago, I ran into my best friend from the eighth grade. As we talked about the years that elapsed I mentioned the name of the hospital I worked at. He then whips out a picture of an amazingly beautiful woman, his girlfriend, who also worked there. I didn’t know her. A year later, during an evening shift, I walked into a linen closet and ran into the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. “You look familiar to me, have we met?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and said with exasperation “you’ll have to be more original than that if you want to ask me out”. Later that night, as we drank coffee at JoJo’s in Rancho Mirage California we finally discovered she had previously dated my best friend from 8th grade. 5 weeks later I proposed and we are coming up on our 42nd wedding anniversary. Dead rabbits aren’t always a bad thing.
Well, my friend many years ago set me up on a blind date, we planned a double date, and I rode with him and his girlfriend to pick the girl up. As we pulled up to her home he calmly stated he had never met this girl and as far as he knew she could be pregnant. Turned out she was indeed pregnant, but we all still went to dinner. After, for something to do, as kissing and hugging were out of the question, we all went and got tattoos. my tattoo ended up being Pan, the inspiration for a character in my book Knight on Time, so I guess all worked out.