Petting (This One's For All Ex-Girlfriends Out There)

I was outside, standing on a chair and fiddling with my satellite radio's antenna, when my new neighbour rounded the corner.

"Biscuit! Biiiscuuuuiiiit!" He called. When he saw me he stopped. "Hey there! Have you seen Biscuit?"

Since this was shortly after the Great Arachnid Slaying of 2009, I was still a tad jumpy. I warily looked at him. "What exactly IS this Biscuit you are looking for?" I stood on my toes, already imagining and dreading his answer. A venomous snake? A non-poisonous snake? (I don't care. My terror doesn't know the difference.) A rat? A mouse? Or by any hopeful yet unlikely chance... a Biscuit as in Sea Biscuit? (Not that I'm all that comfortable around horses either, mind. There was that frightening experience with that volatile little Shetland pony when I was about ten years old which had left me traumatised for life. No, I'm not going to talk about it. Let's just say that, just because it is small, it doesn't possess any less horse power than regular-sized horses! Nasty little bugger...)

I knew it wasn't a dog, because NO dog gets past me without being petted and belly rubbed to within an inch of its life. And at the time, he had already lived here long enough that I would have noticed/heard a dog or a cat.

He ignored me.

"BIIIIIISCUUUUU... Oh, THERE you are!" I whirled around to look in the same direction of the garden that he was walking towards, just in time to see a huge light brown blur out of the corner of my eye. I froze. "Oh, hell..." I thought. "It's one of those mutant-sized cane rats... the same ones they put on leashes and use in Angola to sniff out landmines!"

Imagine my absolute relief when the blur morphed into a harmless, hopping bunny! A BUNNY!

"Oh, CUTE man!" I said (perhaps a tad too loudly and enthusiastically) and jumped off the chair.

He scooped up the utterly charming Biscuit and brought him over to me. "Yes, he can even do tricks. Here, let me show you." He put Biscuit down at my feet and snapped his fingers, while I looked on with great skepticism. "Circle, Biscuit! Circle!"

Apart from twitching one of his long ears and his trembling whiskers, Biscuit remained utterly motionless. "Oh, Biscuit! Come ON!" For a dude with big ears, Biscuit sure did not listen! My neighbour looked at me. "I PROMISE you he can do tricks. But..." his face fell. "Usually he only listens to my ex-girlfriend."

I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. "Ooooh, ouch! Shame! That's gotta hurt!"

He also laughed, but not QUITE as heartily as me. "Yeah. He really really loves her. And he's possessive! When she's holding him and anyone dares to come near her, he actually tries to nip them!"

I knelt down and petted Biscuit. "Oh, you good boy, you!" I said and wished I had a large carrot to give him for displaying such loyalty and devotion towards the ex-girlfriend.

A few weeks later, I saw a gorgeous girl with long, blonde hair outside. She was sitting in our shared courtyard, a content Biscuit cradled in her arms. Seriously, that bunny was SWOONING. "You must be the ex-girlfriend!" I said, and promptly told her the story. Turns out that they now have joint custody, because Biscuit was pining for her too much. (I strongly suspect that he was not the only one, though! And what better ploy to keep on seeing her than to get the bunny involved... sneaky guy!)

Oh, and Biscuit can indeed do tricks. She showed me!  And boy, did that bunny ever show off...