I must have been about 8 years old. It was the night before Easter Sunday and my sister and I were watching The Tale of The Bunny Picnic. It’s important to note that my mom loved holidays. Christmas was her fuckin’ jam, but she got excited about all holidays. She’d even make little leprechaun dolls for St Patty’s Day. So, Easter was kind of a big deal around our house. We dyed and painted eggs, my sister and I got our own batch of eggs to hide from each other and my mom would hide another group of eggs she made — usually plastic and filled with candy — around the house while we slept. We’d wake up to our own Easter baskets, which were filled with candy but no eggs — hence having to find them ourselves. Easter Sunday was a lot of fun as we talked trash to each other about how many eggs we’d find, and how fast we’d find them. This continued until I was about 14 (meaning my sister was about 17), but we still enjoyed the whole process un-ironically.

So there we were, just watching our Easter special, dyeing eggs, havin’ a ball. My father came home, holding this giant box of oranges. I didn’t see the oranges, but the box said “Florida Oranges” on it, so I assumed they were oranges. I thought oranges were a weird thing to bring home for Easter, so I just kept right on dyeing eggs. About a minute later, I heard my mom squeal “OHHH HOW LOVELY!”. I remember looking at my sister, and vice-versa, saying things lke”does mom really love oranges? who cares about oranges?”. We were heavily confused, but our mom was excited about fucking EVERYTHING, so we basically just ignored her.

My mom said “ohh! come see! come see!” and made us get up from the couch just to take a look at these fuckin’ oranges. An adult me would’ve said “jesus christ, you’re crazy about these fuckin’ oranges”, but childhood me was probably like “psh. okay.. I’ll see the ORANGES, I guess”.

They were not oranges. They were fucking bunny rabbits. Adorable, floppy-eared bunny rabbits. Baby adorable floppy-eared bunny rabbits. Is there anything in this world more adorable than baby floppy-eared bunny rabbits as a fucking Easter present for your children?? ¹.

There was a white female and a grey male. Naturally, my sister grabbed the female and I grabbed the male. I don’t recall what my sister named hers (let’s call her “princess” for now), but I named mine “Thumper”. Sure, it’s cheesy and obvious, but I was eight years old so give me a damn break here. Also, his name worked very well for the nickname we later gave him.

Male bunnies, as you might know, hump like… well, rabbits. Hence the expression. Thumper tried to bang Princess any chance he got. He didn’t even care if he was actually humping her properly. He’d hop on her sideways and hump until she hopped away. Then he’d catch up with her and excitedly hop onto her backwards, furiously fucking her face, until she’d back her way out of that and hop away. Then he’d catch up with her and try again. It was probably the 3rd spring we had with these two bunnies until he finally managed to find the right hole. Alas, we didn’t get to keep their babies.

Just about every Sunday, my parents would make my sister and I get in our literal “Sunday Best” for church. When we returned, my dad would pull out his SLR camera take a series of photos. From that Easter Sunday onwards, those photos always included our bunnies, which is why I’ve got about 100 photos of me as a child wearing a full suit, clutching a little grey bunny. Thumper, The Humper.

1. no. the answer is no, there is nothing more adorable than that ↩