Hot Cross Bunny

(The store’s co-owner and I are manning the till when a pair of customers arrive. They seem to be a married couple. There is no one else in the store.)

Woman: “Oh, rabbits! Look at the rabbits. I want a rabbit.”

Man: “No. You have guinea pigs already. You can’t have both, they’ll fight.”

(She pouts, and he goes to the rodent aisle, leaving her behind. She stares at the rabbit cage for a few minutes.)

Woman: “Is this a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit?”

Me: “That one’s female, but we have another in a different cage which I don’t know the gender of. I can check if you want.”

Woman: “Oh yes, please!”

(I get the other rabbit, which is younger and fluffier than the one she was looking at before. The co-owner shows me how to sex it and we establish that it is male.)

Woman: “He’s so pretty!”

Me: “Yeah, he’s a cute little fella, isn’t he?”

Woman: “I’ll take this rabbit!” *she holds out her arms for the rabbit*

(I think she just wants to cuddle it for a little while, so I show her how to hold it properly and leave her to it. A few minutes later, the man comes back to the cashier and she runs over to him.)

Man: “You can’t have that rabbit. Put it back.”

Woman: “No, please! They no fight!”

Man: “Yes, they will. You can’t have it.”

Woman: “No, I want it!”

(She clutches the poor rabbit tightly and buries her nose in its fur, stomping her feet like a child.)

Man: “Put it back now.”

(The woman walks away from him, burying her face even deeper into the fur. He trails after her, telling her sternly to put it back while she keeps her back to him, muttering ‘no, no, no’ over and over, eventually running out of the store and into the carpark.)

Co-owner: “Excuse me, but could you please stay inside the store while handling our animals.”

(She freezes, allowing the man to catch up and steer her back to the rabbit’s cage, which he opens.)

Man: “Put it back in there now.”

(At this point, she notices that we do have a male guinea pig housed in the same cage as the rabbit. It was fighting with the other male pigs, and there where no other cages available. She blows up again.)

Woman: “See! See! I take this rabbit, they don’t fight! They don’t fight!”

Man: “I don’t care. Put the bloody rabbit back right now or I will get rid of the guinea pigs and you will never have another pet!”

(She whines, stomps her foot again, and then dumps the rabbit back into it’s cage while staring accusingly at the man.)

Man: “There, done.”

(She wails and stomps, her arms crossed over her chest. He says nothing and she runs to their car. The man then pays for his guinea pig food, and leaves with a look of sheer ‘please, kill me now’ plastered across his face.)

Me: *to the co-owner* “Letting her hold that rabbit was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

Co-owner “Probably.”

(For any concerned, the rabbit was fine, and it found a sane home later that week.)