Me: Well, it’s good to not have to drive home after the event.
Friend: Here’s the bed. I’m afraid that we couldn’t move the rabbit’s pen, but she shouldn’t be too noisy.
Me: Rabbit?
Tierce: Rabbit?
Me: Thank Dog we brought Tierce’s pen.
Friend: Well the rabbit’s pen’s sides are pretty high, so Tierce shouldn’t be able to get in there anyway.
Me: I’m not going to tell her the story of how you scaled the compost heap, then jumped on to the top of the neighbor’s shed, then dropped six feet into the neighbor’s yard.
Tierce: No, don’t tell her. It’ll make the surprise all the greater when I-
Me: STAY AWAY FROM THE RABBIT!
Tierce: I’m just *sniffing* it!
Friend: He’s just sniffing it. Oh, look! He’s wagging his tail! He wants to be friends!
Me: Are you friends with your beef cattle?
Friend: No, why?
Me: Never mind. Lovely house you ha- STAY AWAY FROM THE RABBIT!
Tierce: I was just snif-
Me: You were plotting where to bite!
Tierce: I think you’re being way too paranoid.
Friend: Are you talking to the dog?
Me: No, I was establishing my dominance by means of verbal cues that alert Tierce to the imminent danger of his furry little neck being wrung.
Tierce: She’s being meeeaaannn to me!
Friend: Yes, she is being mean to my widdle fuwwy pwecious. Pwecious puppy don’t wanna eat my bunny, does Pwecious?
Tierce: Define ‘eat’.
Me: He looks like a cute little 23 pound tiny husky who loves everybody, but he’s a KILLER! I’m not leaving him alone down here!
Friend: Besides, our rabbit’s really big. She’s nearly his size.
Me: This is the dog that I can’t take into the dog park because he deliberately picked a fight with a 110 pound Rottweiler and I’m not subjecting other dogs to him again.
Friend: But he’s so cute!
Tierce: But I’m so cute!
Me: And a world-class jerk.
Tierce: Well, if we’re going to call each other names…
Friend: How can you feel that way about your own dog?
Me: Easily.
Tierce: She hates me. She starves and beats me, too.
Friend: Poor ‘ittle cutie!
Me: Look, I know my dog. I know that given a tenth of a quarter of a half a chance, he’ll kill your rabbit in the bloodiest, most disgusting way possible and quite possibly vomit what he ate up on your carpet and relieve himself of the rest in a stream of diarrhea that starts at the bottom of the stairs and ends somewhere underneath your couch.
Friend: …is this from personal experience?
Me: With a rabbit, no. With one of my friend’s children’s beloved pets, no. Believe me when I say this that I do not want this to become personal experience.
Friend: Uh, you can put his pen over here.
Tierce: Damn it.
Friend: …I also have some plywood you can put across his pen for a roof…
Tierce: That sucks.
Me: That would be lovely.
Didn’t you need something very heavy to put on the plywood?
My mother had a magnificent German Shepherd that got along splendidly with all the small furry creatures that lived in my mother’s classroom during the school year, and then during the summer at the house.
One day, when my mother was setting the laundry outside to dry, the Shepherd came bounding up all happy like, and dropped the rabbit’s head in my mother’s laundry basket.
I am amazed that your friend was so naive about these kinds of things . . .
this reminds me of a bugs bunny episode.. he was a “guest” at some castle where the lord of the castle demanded from the cook.. “I WANT MY HOSSENFEFFER~!” (sp wrong, i’m sure).. turns out the main ingredient in this hossenfeffer was rabbit..
so really.. Tierce was thinking.. “IT’S HOSSENFEFFER~!”