13 Year Old Bunny Rabbit

The Photo That Got Away

Halloween night: a 13 year old bunny rabbit zooming past the little kids on his skateboard, smiling and waving.

Hands down scariest house Sunday night was the one with all of the tombstones in the front yard and the dry ice wafting over them. The tombstones were obviously fake, and the dry ice kept being blown the wrong way, but the two forty something witches teetering on high heels with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, either stoned out of their minds or actually people who couldn’t figure out where the treat basket was, what was in it, or how to give out the treats - they were fucking scary.

Coming in at a close second was the 6′2″ man in a hooded cloak with black mesh covering his face, so it looked as if there was just a hole, who stalked silently to the screen door, which creaked when he opened it. He gave out the treats with the hand that wasn’t holding a cleaver, and after we’d gone down the stairs, he stood there looking after us, banging the cleaver on the porch railing in such disturbing way that I was relieved when he went back into the house, calling, “Did you feed the dog yet?” in a perfectly normal way. Because man, he was creepy.

Todd was working out on the treadmill on the gym this morning. The treadmill measures your heartrate, and so he was able to see that every time he looked up at the tv, which was playing non-stop election coverage, his heartrate rose dramatically.

Paul What do you think I want to be when I grow up?

Sage Ummmm…a scientist slash artist?

Paul No. I’m going to be an inventor.

Todd Oh, that’s a cool job.

Paul [long pause, then] Except…I don’t think an inventor job would pay for my house very well.

Sage You can have more than one job, you know.

Todd You could be a scientist during the day and an inventor at night.

Paul That’s a good idea! And I will live with a woman, and then we’ll have a baby.

Sage, exchanging amused glances with Todd over Paul’s head Really?

Paul Yes. And then the baby will be an inventor also.

Todd Well, you can’t really predict what your child will be like.

Sage For example, we didn’t know that you would love Halloween.

Paul Did you like Halloween before I was born?

Todd No, not at all.

Sage We used to pretend we weren’t home when the trick or treaters came.

Paul That’s terrible.

Later, I said to Todd…

Sage I just realized that people born after 9/11 will have no idea what the world was like before. And I was thinking that Paul’s kid will ask him what it was like, and Paul will be all, “It was perfect! We all lived in the woods in tents! And we gathered our own water! And we could play wherever we wanted! And there were wild animals who wandered around and weren’t even scared!”

Todd That’s exactly what he’ll say. Did you hear that Osama Bin Laden was on tv again?

Sage What a complete coincidence. [bangs forehead on hand]

Todd, imitating Bush Ah’m slippin’ in the polls, Osama. Cin you jolt up the ‘Murican public for me, ol’ buddy?

Sage How gullible can the voters be? I mean, come ON! Jerry Bruckheimer could have made a movie about everything that’s happened in the past 3 years in the year 2000, and by the time he got to Osama’s video there would only be about twelve people left in the theatre, because everyone else would have left in disgust. “They expect us to swallow a plot that ridiculous? Fuck, I want my eight bucks back.”

I’m trying to resign myself to Bush winning. And I’m sure I’ll believe I’m resigned to it until the results actually come in, at which point I’ll need to fight the growing urge I’ve had for the past week to get rip roaring drunk - the first time I’ve been tempted to drink a drop for thirteen years.