Through one of those weird "one thought leads to another which leads to another" days, it occurred to me that it has to be around the anniversary of the death of my bunster. He died about this time, middle of August, 2003, at the bunny-elderly age of seven and a half.

I got Bump, as he came to be called, when he was about two months old and I was about to begin my first year of grad school in 1996. I had spoken to the two girls who were to be my roommates, and we all decided we wanted a pet. However, our landlord did not allow dogs and cats. Since a rather large loophole existed (he only mentioned dogs and cats, no other animals), we wanted something that had some personality and would interact with us. My brother mentioned that he knew someone (who knew someone) who raised rabbits. "What the heck," I thought. So I went and picked him out of the crowd of other bunnies.

I wanted to name him Archimedes, and maybe call him Archie for short, but the first night I had him his true name appeared. The people who had bred him had kept the rabbits in wire hutches. I had put him in a glass aquarium with an open screen top. He looked through the glass and in his little bunny mind he thought, "I can see through it...I can GO through it." And bump bump bump on the glass all night long. And so he was Bump.

He was not the brightest animal in the world, although he was terribly handsome. A "broken chinchilla" Holland lop, he had a beautiful pattern of dark silver fur kind of like an inkblot. He had bright eyes, big fuzzy feet, a little tail-tuft on his butt, and long ears that he could at best hold straight out to the sides when he was very interested in something. He went everywhere at full-tilt, bouncing off furniture, smashing into door frames, and crashing headlong into the wall one day when he couldn't make the turn fast enough. He knocked himself unconscious, broke his top front teeth off (beginning a life-long necessity of clipping the teeth with wire cutters because they didn't wear themselves down on the lower teeth after that), and precipitated the vet to suggest that we make him a little bunny crash helmet with holes for his ears. We didn't, and he never crashed into the wall again, but he didn't slow down all that much.

Bump was very lovable, at least to me. He would play with my roommates (he loved fetch, and if you gave him car keys he'd throw them up in the air for hours--and then they'd land on his head), but when I'd call him he'd come barrelling down the hall to me. I'd pucker up and make smooching noises, and he'd climb into my lap and squint his eyes and put his nose up to receive bunny kisses. He loved to have his nose rubbed, between his eyes. He'd flop on the ground, close his eyes, and go into a state of bunny nirvana until you stopped rubbing, and then he'd look at you like, "Are you kidding? You aren't done yet."

He was mostly potty trained, doing most of his liquid business (he'd forget occasionally) in a litter box. He also slept in it sometimes. Eew, I know. He got better about leaving his pellets in the box, but I'd find them in various locations in the house on a somewhat regular basis, so he never really got the hang of it. He'd walk on a leash, sort of, although he only wanted to go as far as a tasty patch of grass in the yard. He did get destructive when he was ignored--he'd get a hold of a book and tear pages out, or he'd scratch at the carpet. When we moved out at the end of the school year, I had to roll pieces of duct tape and place them over the backing of the carpet that was left on the floor, and then I took all the pieces of yarn that had been scratched off the carpet and put them rather painstakingly back in place. I don't know if the landlord ever realized that the carpet was damaged, but we did get our security deposit back, so maybe he never noticed.

My inlaws had a collie who loved Bump. Rex would race up to me as soon as I got to their house and sniff the rabbit through his travel cage. I'd set the cage down and open it, and Rex would shove his head in and sniff nose to nose with Bump. When Bump hopped out onto the floor, Rex would follow him and nudge him whenever he stopped hopping. I assume he must have been trying to herd him somewhere.

He learned to beg for treats. His favorite treats were M&Ms. I'd break them in half and give him a few pieces (I know, some of you are freaking out because chocolate is bad for animals, but rabbits can tolerate it much better than dogs or cats because rabbits are related to rodents). He'd sit up and wait for the pieces, and make this funny noise.

Probably my favorite thing about Bump was the noise he'd make. I always thought that rabbits were silent, but Bump would make this weird noise when he was really excited about something, sort of a "voot". The best description I can give is, put your bottom lip and top teeth together and make a long "v" sound, and put a "t" on the end without actually taking your teeth off your lip. He'd do it repeatedly: "Voot voot voot voot voot" as he bounded around the room and played. I have no idea what it meant, and he did it less and less as he got older, but it was a very unique sound and pretty funny to hear.

When Bump got older, he slowed down. He played less, he ran around less, and he spent more and more time lying around and sleeping. Finally, he stopped eating. I knew the end was near. The morning he died he was still alive when I left to go to work, but he wouldn't move from his little bed. I petted him and spent about half an hour talking to him. When I had to leave, I told him that if it was time for him to go, he needed to go and I loved him. My husband left an hour or so later, and he said he was unresponsive but still breathing. I knew by the time I got home that afternoon he'd be gone. And he was. So I called the vet's office and asked if I could take his body to them for them to take care of. I wrapped him in a t-shirt, placed him in a box, and drove him the three blocks to the office.

The interesting thing was, my dog didn't trust me for a few days after this. He was home with Bump all day, and I know he was aware that Bump had died. But he also knew that the bunny LEFT THE HOUSE with me, but I came back and HE DIDN'T. The dog didn't want me to take him for a walk for several days. I think he thought I'd take him and leave him wherever I took the rabbit.

Anyway, all of these memories were triggered by one of those random thought connections. Someone was typing about Monty Python's Holy Grail, and mentioned Zoot (bad, evil, wicked, naughty Zoot), which made me think "voot" which made me think of the bunny and made me realize it's been almost exactly four years since he died.

I miss him. He was sweet, friendly (although jealous of my husband), and cuddly. He made a great Easter bunny (he loved to get into the baskets and make a mess). And he looked like a furry little airplane with his ears sticking out to the sides.