GOOD MORNING, ESTEEMED PET LADY,
While enjoying my morning Bloody Mary, I happened across the sad story of Stop Hop [The Pet Lady, March 28] and am constrained to pass along the following cautionary tale. Some years past, my two darling daughters were in possession of a household pet named, of course, Rabbit E. Lee. During Rabbit E. Lee’s tenure as a truly excellent member of our small family, he had two peculiar habits, one of which led directly to his demise.
His primary bad habit was taking dumps on the tiled bathroom floor, and rabbit dumps are, as we know, extremely hard, small pellets, so when one inadvertently stepped on them with one’s bare feet, one’s footing was precarious at best. This was a puzzlement because he usually slept behind the loo.
The second, and fatal, habit was chewing on electrical cords. His demise came during a David Letterman show when he made contact with the wiring in the television plug-in. After he stopped ricocheting around the room, much like a BB in a boxcar, and came to terminal, and I mean terminal, rest, he resembled Elsa Lanchester’s hairdo in The Bride of Frankenstein. Herein lies the caution: Rabbits chew on everything!
In sum, let me just say, for fanciers of the lovable little rodents, beware rabbits and electrical cords.
Yours for better pet-ery,
A Doggie Devotee
GOOD DAY, A.D.D.,
The Pet Lady avoids morning at all costs, but a Bloody Mary around noon is certainly nice, isn’t it?
What a tale, indeed, dear A.D.D.! But the Pet Lady is puzzled as to the nature of your puzzlement: Mr. Lee’s emitting poo pellets on the bathroom floor and bedding down nearby, under the tank, would seem to make all the sense in the world to a tiny fur brain—poo, hop, hop, rest. Certainly he would not relieve himself, as the proverb goes, where he slumbered, nor would your footing be any concern of his, so why ought he bother going in a corner?
Your description of the last moments of Mr. Lee is distressingly vivid; one hopes that the girls were tucked away in bed before Mr. Letterman’s television program (which, by the way, the Pet Lady had not seen in many years until one evening recently—has it not become utterly wretched? The Pet Lady has no lost love for television broadcasts in general, but she does recall the young Mr. Letterman, cardigan-sweatered and droll; he now appears suited and stricken. What gives?), though bearing witness to this would have performed the dual function of introducing them to the mysteries of death and the dangers of electricity simultaneously. The Pet Lady imagines, in any event, that they did not pursue the popular childhood pastime of sticking things other than plugs in electrical sockets after the untimely electrocution of their friend Mr. Lee.
Thank you ever so for taking the time to let the dear readers know about your electric pet, A.D.D., and cheers!
The Pet Lady
Pet problem? Send photos and letters to The Pet Lady, c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste. 300, Seattle, WA 98104, or e-mail thepetlady@seattleweekly.com.
