Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Bumbling bunny Ted certainly has an unusual way with the ladies
Just lately, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the lack of manners being displayed around our household. I suppose that, with a teenage daughter in the house, bad manners could reasonably be expected and she certainly has a turn of phrase that’s anything but polite – but she’s not actually the worst offender.
No, that honour goes to a certain lop-eared rabbit of (in the words of AA Milne) very little brain. I refer of course to Ted – officially The World’s Daftest Rabbit after being immortalised in a book of that name (something I’m sure he appreciates). Ted’s manners around his long suffering live-in-partner-girl-rabbit Billie are, with no exaggeration, appalling.
While Billie is prone to bouts of sudden violence, her treatment of Ted is predominantly very good. She washes and grooms him for hours on end, and sometimes he even notices she’s doing it. Is Ted grateful? No, not at all – as time’s gone by, he’s become less and less likely to ever return the pampering compliment.
It was a big surprise then when, the other day, I noticed Ted vigorously washing the top of Billie’s head for quite a considerable length of time. However, on closer inspection, I realised the ridiculous truth. While it looked for all the world as though he was washing her, he actually had his foot on her head and was nibbling at his own back claws. So, in effect, he was using Billie’s head as a prop so he could bite his toenails.
That’s nice, isn’t it? I can’t actually imagine worse manners. To make matters worse, when he’d finished dealing with his feet, he suddenly jumped on her back in what must have been his thousandth unsuccessful attempt to mount her. Can there have been any worse come-on in history than first chewing your own toenails?
The main cause of failure in Ted’s latest half-hearted mating attempt was that it took place on the very top shelf of their hutch, much too close to the roof. There really isn’t room for double-decker rabbits on that shelf and, predictably, Ted got wedged between Billie and the ceiling. His frantic attempts to then escape involved pushing forward and down over Billie’s face.
An increasingly annoyed Billie waited patiently while her cumbersome partner untangled himself, then took two steps forward and delivered a vicious back-kick to his ears, causing him to reach the lower levels of the hutch far faster than he’d planned.
For Ted, all this was situation normal and after taking a few seconds to compose himself, he started munching on the pile of hay he’d landed in.
Incidentally, on the subject of manners, I heard a song by a band named Bad Manners the other day, called Lorraine. Now, while my wife Lorraine hasn’t yet been mentioned in this column due to her usually impeccable manners, this song contained the lyrics Lorraine’ saf lipping con and more worryingly Lorraine punched me on the nose.
Not such good manners after all then, Lorraine?
On closer inspection Ted was biting toenails his own