Friday, April 5, 2013

Family Secrets

When I was little my dad had a rabbit hutch in the back yard where he raised New Zealand white rabbits.  I loved it because what little girl doesn't like a big box full of bunnies? 

Our hutch was very much like this except it was painted green. 
The point is there was plenty of room to walk around underneath and get at the rabbit turds.
I loved playing with the baby bunnies and it never really occurred to me that they weren't multiplying like proverbial rabbits.  There always seemed to be enough, but not too many.  I never gave it a second thought.

On a totally different subject: when I was a kid we ate a LOT of chicken. 


And it was always in pieces.  Never a whole chicken like I saw on cartoons.

When I asked my mom why we never had a whole chicken her answer was, "This is a different kind of chicken."  I never thought about it again.  I was too busy having an ideal childhood playing with my baby bunnies and marveling how their turds looked so much like Coco Puffs. 

Then when my sisters and I were grown, we were teasing my mom, telling her about all the times we snuck out of the house, and where we really were when we told her we were at a friend's house, or at a church lock-in, or at "prom."  

She didn't think it was funny. 

Then she said, "Remember all that chicken we ate when you were kids?"  We didn't know where she was going with this.  One of us said, "Way to change the subject, Mom! Yeah, what about it?"  She said, "It wasn't chicken, it was New Zealand white rabbits.  From the back yard."

We were stunned.  In retrospect, it was pretty obvious.  When the rabbits got big enough to scratch and not be so fun anymore, they disappeared.  But still, it was a shocker.  As we sat there with our mouths hanging open, thinking about the fate of all the poor Thumpers, Mom said,  "Want to keep telling secrets?"

We didn't.


Mmmmmmmmmm.....deliciousssssss..........
On another totally different subject, we had a LOT of good luck when we were kids.  I attribute it to the lucky rabbit's feet that were so ubiquitous in the 1970s. 


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