I had a feeling early this morning that something had gone wrong. Soon enough, we learned that someone had broken into the house.
The kids were the first ones awake. They woke us in bed. “Mommy! Someone left stuff all over the dining room!” We rushed downstairs to see what had happened.
In two woven baskets on the dining room table was an abundance of chocolate and candy. The kids started to paw at some of the items on the table.
“Don’t touch anything!” I said. “We want to preserve the scene for the police!”
“No, Daddy, no!” Riley replied. “Don’t call the police. It was just the Easter Bunny.”
That “Easter Bunny” had struck again. I’m not sure how he keeps getting into our house. Presumably he enters via the same vector as Santa Claus, who also somehow seems to evade the traps I lay in the fireplace flue every year. Why these vandals keep entering our home and tempting our children with candies and gifts is beyond my cognition. I am beginning to suspect a man on the inside helping this miscreants, but who?
“Where are those blasted cats?” I demanded. They’re certainly doing nothing to ameliorate the situation, allowing bunnies to run rampant inside the house. Phobos looked up at me innocently, as if he was oblivious to the whole event. Deimos stared at me blankly from across the kitchen, as if he’d been traumatized at the sight of some overlarge rodent. My hope that their presence would deter the Easter Bunny was clearly unfounded.
I poked at some of the candy as the kids pulled toys and stuffed animals from the basket. It was inevitable that they would eventually try the candy and subject themselves to unknown potential rabbit-poisons. Berta sacrificed herself first to test the stranger’s candy by eating one of the chocolate and peanut butter eggs. “Seems safe,” she said.
I was skeptical, so I risked tasting a malted ball egg of my own. I lived. The kids took a couple of carrot-shaped chocolates to nibble and danced around the dining room with stuffed bunnies from their baskets. They promptly named them Chester and Emily.
Next year, Easter Bunny. Next year…
