Easter Bunny
Upon the arrival of this year's pagan solsticial spring and fertility festival (upon which Jesus also seems coincidentally to have risen from the dead — what clever timing), I once more had to face my fear of the Easter Bunny.
It's not really a debilitating fear, but, well . . . okay, let me back up a bit.
Imagine me as little three or four year old Matthew. I was still assembling my general worldview at that point. A lot of things in my universe didn't really make sense.
Then imagine the following:
At around 6:30am on a Sunday morning, I was violently jarred awake by my parents shouting about some Easter Bunny character having visited my room at night. Understand, it took every bit of my post-toddler willpower to wish away the monsters I knew lived in my closet at night, so the idea of anything visiting me in my sleep without my knowing wasn't really a welcome one.
So I slumped out of bed, footie pajamas and all, to find what outside my bedroom door? A basket of bizarre toxic green plastic grass, upon which rested the Worst Chocolate Imaginable. You may say a three year old has no taste in quality of chocolate, but take a big bite of generic pre-packaged Easter chocolate and then let me know what you think. Plus, how someone could mysteriously drop a basket of the Worst Chocolate Imaginable outside my doorway in secret and the candy not be poisoned or cursed was beyond my comprehension. To appease the parents, I choked down some of the stuff hesitantly, but began bequeathing away my toys to my dearest friends in my head, in case the retches of toxicity began any time soon.
Not long afterward, I was regaled with the announcement that I had a New Easter Suit, immediately after which I was shown a yellow and brown plaid abomination which my parents obviously intended for me not only to admire, but actually to put on my person. Things were clearly progressing from bad to worse. Before I had even gotten my second new white patent leather loafer entirely onto my foot, I was whisked out the front door to face what was then, and was for every Easter Sunday henceforth for many years, the worst Lubbock, Texas, dust storm of the spring. I think this worked to my parents' advantage in tossing me into the car while the sand was still caked too thickly on my eyeballs for me to know what was going on.
Fast forward 20 minutes or so to us arriving at the church. "You mean, I have to let people see me wearing this?!?" I protested.
"But it's your new Easter suit!" my parents responded. "Don't worry — right after church we're going for an Easter egg hunt! It'll be fun!"
Okay, it's time for another aside. I only began eating eggs when I was around 26 years old. Eggs in more complex things, like bread or cakes or even meringues and stuff, were fine, but eggs on their own were not a happy food. Not as bad as bananas, but I still didn't eat them if I could help it. So understand that the idea of intentionally seeking out a bunch of eggs didn't strike me as the most enlightening way to spend the afternoon.
At any rate, there I was at church, in my yellow and brown plaid abomination, wondering why my Sunday school teacher thought it was so clever to say "He is risen," and have us answer "He is risen indeed!" (she made us repeat this about 40 times, and every time I was wondering who even says "indeed" anymore), and making Easter lilies out of white construction paper and purple pipe cleaners, and then singing a bunch of Easter songs, and all the while thinking, "Oh boy, I get to endure all this and then go raid the henhouse or whatever this egg thing is about. Just count my tears of elation, will you. And why the hell do people keep saying my yellow sportcoat is cute? It itches as if it were made of llama ass-hair." (Projecting, admittedly, into my 3 year old self, but that's what I would have said, had I the vocabulary.)
The time for the egg hunt arrived soon enough. Initially I was relieved to find that we weren't hunting real eggs, but rather these pastel-colored candy eggs in crackly plastic wrappers. A significant improvement, I thought, until I stopped to actually taste one of them — dear Jesus, bring back the Worst Chocolate Imaginable any day. Those candy eggs had to have been crafted from mothballs and spider egg-sacs. No longer sure why I was bothering to gather up any more of the abhorrent treats, I wandered off into the trees and spotted — what was it? — an orange plastic egg. With a number inside! A glimmer of hope. This was leading somewhere, finally.
"Look Mom!" I said. "I found this!"
"It's a prize egg!" she answered. "Hold onto it and you can redeem it for a. . . ."
And then, just as the comprehension began to dawn on me that this was the first good thing to happen to me all day long, a much larger kid in a red and navy blue plaid abomination swept by me and snatched the egg out of my hand. I'd like to say I didn't cry, but first, I was only three years old, and second, wouldn't you? I mean, what a day, right?
At any rate, my mom did her best to cheer me up, finally saying, "You know what? It was probably something dumb, anyway, like a camera or a radio. I know. Let's go meet the Easter Bunny."
". . ."
"He's just inside!"
". . ."
"I'll take a picture of you?"
". . ."
"In your new suit?"
". . ."
"Maybe he'll give you some candy?"
"Candy? Heck, why didn't you say so. Let's go."
As we went into the building, my enthusiasm found me hopping, and skipping, and . . . freezing in utter, abject horror. What sat before me was the largest freak of a creature I'd ever seen: eyes as large as playground balls — teeth long enough to sever my head right off my neck in one absent-minded nibble. This was Not Good. And to make matters worse, my parents scooped me up and tossed me into the clutches of this beast. Just when I thought my luck couldn't hit rock bottom with any more force, what did the giant hell-spawned rabbit do? He handed me yet another one of those too-awful-for-words candy eggs. I swear I could still see out of the corner of my eye a couple thousand candy eggs which remained in the egg hunt area after the rest of the kids realized what they tasted like. Why in the name of all that was holy would I want to be given another one?
He would have done better to have cheerfully offered a warm glistening turd to someone trapped in a latrine pit.
There was nothing at all charitable about the gesture, and I couldn't help thinking about the fact that this horrible, frightening, and altogether uneducated-in-the-ways-of-decent-candy creature had been sneaking around my bedroom the night before.
Oh.
My.
God.
I would have been less disturbed if I'd caught my uncle sniffing my underpants at night.
And what for? This holiday? Easter? Forget that. If this was how you celebrated something, I'd rather be punished instead.
Forget the Worst Chocolate Imaginable.
Forget the yellow and brown plaid abomination.
And most of all forget this mutant perverted lagomorphic bedroom stalker.
I swore I'd hold out until that Halloween gig came around again. Much better candy, and a much cooler outfit, overall. And less scary, of course.
It's not really a debilitating fear, but, well . . . okay, let me back up a bit.
Imagine me as little three or four year old Matthew. I was still assembling my general worldview at that point. A lot of things in my universe didn't really make sense.
Then imagine the following:
At around 6:30am on a Sunday morning, I was violently jarred awake by my parents shouting about some Easter Bunny character having visited my room at night. Understand, it took every bit of my post-toddler willpower to wish away the monsters I knew lived in my closet at night, so the idea of anything visiting me in my sleep without my knowing wasn't really a welcome one.
So I slumped out of bed, footie pajamas and all, to find what outside my bedroom door? A basket of bizarre toxic green plastic grass, upon which rested the Worst Chocolate Imaginable. You may say a three year old has no taste in quality of chocolate, but take a big bite of generic pre-packaged Easter chocolate and then let me know what you think. Plus, how someone could mysteriously drop a basket of the Worst Chocolate Imaginable outside my doorway in secret and the candy not be poisoned or cursed was beyond my comprehension. To appease the parents, I choked down some of the stuff hesitantly, but began bequeathing away my toys to my dearest friends in my head, in case the retches of toxicity began any time soon.
Not long afterward, I was regaled with the announcement that I had a New Easter Suit, immediately after which I was shown a yellow and brown plaid abomination which my parents obviously intended for me not only to admire, but actually to put on my person. Things were clearly progressing from bad to worse. Before I had even gotten my second new white patent leather loafer entirely onto my foot, I was whisked out the front door to face what was then, and was for every Easter Sunday henceforth for many years, the worst Lubbock, Texas, dust storm of the spring. I think this worked to my parents' advantage in tossing me into the car while the sand was still caked too thickly on my eyeballs for me to know what was going on.
Fast forward 20 minutes or so to us arriving at the church. "You mean, I have to let people see me wearing this?!?" I protested.
"But it's your new Easter suit!" my parents responded. "Don't worry — right after church we're going for an Easter egg hunt! It'll be fun!"
Okay, it's time for another aside. I only began eating eggs when I was around 26 years old. Eggs in more complex things, like bread or cakes or even meringues and stuff, were fine, but eggs on their own were not a happy food. Not as bad as bananas, but I still didn't eat them if I could help it. So understand that the idea of intentionally seeking out a bunch of eggs didn't strike me as the most enlightening way to spend the afternoon.
At any rate, there I was at church, in my yellow and brown plaid abomination, wondering why my Sunday school teacher thought it was so clever to say "He is risen," and have us answer "He is risen indeed!" (she made us repeat this about 40 times, and every time I was wondering who even says "indeed" anymore), and making Easter lilies out of white construction paper and purple pipe cleaners, and then singing a bunch of Easter songs, and all the while thinking, "Oh boy, I get to endure all this and then go raid the henhouse or whatever this egg thing is about. Just count my tears of elation, will you. And why the hell do people keep saying my yellow sportcoat is cute? It itches as if it were made of llama ass-hair." (Projecting, admittedly, into my 3 year old self, but that's what I would have said, had I the vocabulary.)
The time for the egg hunt arrived soon enough. Initially I was relieved to find that we weren't hunting real eggs, but rather these pastel-colored candy eggs in crackly plastic wrappers. A significant improvement, I thought, until I stopped to actually taste one of them — dear Jesus, bring back the Worst Chocolate Imaginable any day. Those candy eggs had to have been crafted from mothballs and spider egg-sacs. No longer sure why I was bothering to gather up any more of the abhorrent treats, I wandered off into the trees and spotted — what was it? — an orange plastic egg. With a number inside! A glimmer of hope. This was leading somewhere, finally.
"Look Mom!" I said. "I found this!"
"It's a prize egg!" she answered. "Hold onto it and you can redeem it for a. . . ."
And then, just as the comprehension began to dawn on me that this was the first good thing to happen to me all day long, a much larger kid in a red and navy blue plaid abomination swept by me and snatched the egg out of my hand. I'd like to say I didn't cry, but first, I was only three years old, and second, wouldn't you? I mean, what a day, right?
At any rate, my mom did her best to cheer me up, finally saying, "You know what? It was probably something dumb, anyway, like a camera or a radio. I know. Let's go meet the Easter Bunny."
". . ."
"He's just inside!"
". . ."
"I'll take a picture of you?"
". . ."
"In your new suit?"
". . ."
"Maybe he'll give you some candy?"
"Candy? Heck, why didn't you say so. Let's go."
As we went into the building, my enthusiasm found me hopping, and skipping, and . . . freezing in utter, abject horror. What sat before me was the largest freak of a creature I'd ever seen: eyes as large as playground balls — teeth long enough to sever my head right off my neck in one absent-minded nibble. This was Not Good. And to make matters worse, my parents scooped me up and tossed me into the clutches of this beast. Just when I thought my luck couldn't hit rock bottom with any more force, what did the giant hell-spawned rabbit do? He handed me yet another one of those too-awful-for-words candy eggs. I swear I could still see out of the corner of my eye a couple thousand candy eggs which remained in the egg hunt area after the rest of the kids realized what they tasted like. Why in the name of all that was holy would I want to be given another one?
He would have done better to have cheerfully offered a warm glistening turd to someone trapped in a latrine pit.
There was nothing at all charitable about the gesture, and I couldn't help thinking about the fact that this horrible, frightening, and altogether uneducated-in-the-ways-of-decent-candy creature had been sneaking around my bedroom the night before.
Oh.
My.
God.
I would have been less disturbed if I'd caught my uncle sniffing my underpants at night.
And what for? This holiday? Easter? Forget that. If this was how you celebrated something, I'd rather be punished instead.
Forget the Worst Chocolate Imaginable.
Forget the yellow and brown plaid abomination.
And most of all forget this mutant perverted lagomorphic bedroom stalker.
I swore I'd hold out until that Halloween gig came around again. Much better candy, and a much cooler outfit, overall. And less scary, of course.