The rabbit shaped hole in my heart.......

(This rabbit is hollow and empty, just like me on Easter Morning)

We were heathen hillbillies. So forgive me but when I think of Easter my first and only thought is "Why the hell did the Easter bunny stop bringing me chocolate?"
Seriously?
What's up with that? Did I do something to piss the E.B. off? It's not like I was enjoying rabbit stew or pie every other day, its not like I ate his kin or something.
For many a year this freakishly large but painfully shy rabbit hopped his way through our neighborhood leaving treats for all the kids. I never saw him but I'm no idiot, I saw the evidence of his visit. Chocolate rabbits, chocolate eggs and jelly beans don't just manifest themselves you know.
I mean there's a lot of things in this world we're expected to believe based on heresay and faith but the rabbit...he left some evidence. A little "I wuz here" in an edible form, occasionally he'd even display a sense of humour and leave a few non-edible treats. Pink rubber boots one year, a stuffed bunny toy (perhaps in his own likeness???), another year he left me a Star Trek:The Next Generation Collector's plate with Data's face on the front...my God, it's like he was looking right in to my soul. Chocolate AND Star Trek??
Maybe the Easter Bunny was in kahoots with Santa. Maybe he was paying the old guy off with pastel coloured candies in return for the dirt on all us kids. But unlike Santa who's all judgey judgey about whether we've been good or bad the Easter Bunny just wants to know what kind of candy you'd like, what size boots you wear and which Star Trek: The Next Generation character was your favorite.
Until he stops coming.
Parents are pretty sadistic if you think about it. When you're a kid it's all Easter Bunny this, the Tooth Fairy that, Santa Clause every Christmas and then....they wait...until your eyes have reached the soft doe eyed expression of a true believer, your world is full of magic and make-believe and sweet candy and Star Trek: The Next Generation collector plates....they wait until they have you just where they want you. Expecting the Easter Bunny to make his yearly deposit of sugary goodness in a pretty little basket and hop away to the next place and then.......
He doesn't come.
The parents stay in their room snickering at the bewildered howls of the 20 year old in the kitchen who is sweeping her busted illusions off the linoleum floor. There's no taste of cheap rabbit shaped chocolate for her any more, just the salty bitter tears of reality.
Oh yeah.
No one ever explains AWAY the Easter Bunny.
The adults take great pride in their skill of weaving the reality of old dudes in red coats who have magic powers that let him fit down any chimney. They craft incredibly detailed accounts of what the tooth fairy shall do with the tooth she collected under your pillow, and they lure you with sweet promises of a giant rabbit who for no apparent reason at all in the dull tail end of winter, when spring is still a distant promise of green away, will sneak in to the house at night and bring you.......CANDY.
Just like that, free candy and you don't even need to slather an inch of makeup on your face and go begging at the neighbors for it all night like on Halloween. FREE candy from a GIANT Rabbit.
Until......it stops.
There's no funeral to go to, no graduation ceremony, no party wishing a giant, grizzled old hare a happy retirement. Nothing, zip, nada, zilch...no more......the end.
I never give up hope though, perhaps the Easter Bunny lost my address. Maybe he and Santa were using the same database and it crashed, these things happen you know, and would conveniently explain away old Saint Nick's lack of appearance these last few years. And of course I have a moved a few times.....that could have muddied the waters.....
I'm not quite ready to set any snares in my yard just yet. I'd give the hairy old hare a chance to explain he and his lack of chocolate away for a least a full minute before I had me one hell of a pet rabbit chained up in my garage.
So I sit, and I wait, one on eye on the clock and one eye on my growling, barely restrained craving for bunny shaped chocolate, trying to hold my stomach and emotions in check.
Sure I can buy it in a day or two for 90% less than it's price right now but it's not the same.
I don't want store bought chocolate, I want it from HIM...
Every year I wait........fingers drumming on my desk....until sleep knocks me unconscious for refusing to go to bed. And every year I awake to bright morning sunshine, a new day and a decidedly depressing lack of any rabbit deposited chocolate.
Do I cry?
Maybe a little, till I tuck those tears away in to a hard little ball of revenge that resides under my heart. Where I will harbor and nurture and grow my anger like a dark and lovely plant that's riddled with thorns and poisonous berries and one of these years....one of these years...... I won't be waiting by the door for a damn rabbit and his crappy chocolate.
I'll be out there.....he won't need to come find me cause I'll be looking for him.
And in the immortal words of our beloved Elmer Fudd..
"It's Wabbit season, and I'm hunting wabbits, so be vewy, vewy quiet!"