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April 10, 2009

Easter’s Follies

I believed in The Easter Bunny a lot longer than I believed in Santa Claus.  For some reason, the Easter Bunny just made more sense. He didn’t get talked about as much, for one thing, so there were fewer loose lips to sink that particular ship. Plus I read the hell out of The Country Bunny And The Little Gold Shoes (which still makes me cry) and my mom always took me to “Breakfast With The Easter Bunny” events at the local mall wherever we happened to be living at the time, and The Easter Bunny seemed like a good egg, so to speak. Since he didn’t actually talk, there was an ethereal, other-worldy quality that appealed to me more than the phony-hale-fellow-well-met thing Santa had going on. And instead of worrying about what toys you might or might not receive, you always knew you would get candy, with the dyed eggs (never eaten) and piles of fake plastic grass, so it was less stressful. (Although a couple of times I got to go to some fancy egg hunts with rich friends at their country clubs and if you found a gold-wrapped egg, you won money or sometimes a chocolate bunny the size of a small child. The competition was intense. I usually became severely anxious, as I also did whenever there was a pinata involved, that I might not get the big prize.)

When I was six years old, I woke up very early on Easter Sunday because I had to go to the bathroom. I was about to get up and go, but then it struck me that The Easter Bunny might be in the house at that very moment. (We usually did indoor egg hunts.)  What if I disturbed him? What if I scared him away–and I didn’t get my FAIR SHARE of Easter treats?  (I have always been very concerned, a la Sally from The Peanuts, that I get what is coming to me.)  So that left me stuck in bed, paralyzed with indecision. Eventually, I made up my mind that wetting the bed was the superior option. I am fairly certain that I made the right decision.

Looking back, the guys in giant Easter Bunny costumes were kind of creepy. But at the time I found it all so delightful. Maybe it’s because we didn’t go to church.

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