I had a scary close call the other night.
My near-death experience wasn’t with a soccer mom in her too-big SUV, nor a weaving drunk, nor a Fast-and-Furious wannabe in his low-slung racer.
No, I was almost done in by a bunny.
I was riding home after work the other night/early morning, and the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen came bolting out in the street right in front of me. Thumper somehow — no doubt a result of my impeccable bike-handling skills, and a spectacular bunny-hop (by the rabbit, not me) — managed to stay out of my spokes and scampered across the street unscathed, but if I had been going any faster than my usual blistering plod, Peter might have been separated from his cottontail, and I might have been separated rather painfully from my bike.
I could have been killed, I tell ya!
I’ve run over furry critters before. More than once I’ve pedaled over squirrels and was rewarded with a nice, sickening THUMP-THUMP as my wheels bumped over the nut-lover’s spine, and every time the little bugger kept on scampering.
But I’m afraid if ever I roll into Flopsy or Mopsy, physics dictates I’m going down. Hard.
I don’t know much about wascally wabbits, except that they annually do a number on my garden. And I don’t generally wish them any ill-will, except when they’re doing their number on my garden, at which time they’re certainly encouraged to rot in cutesy-wootsy little bun-bun hell.
For the other 362 days of the year my garden actually is in bloom and not overgrown with weeds, I gladly can coexist with the cuddly little coneys.
Except, of course, when I’m on my bike.
My recent horrific hare experience isn’t isolated.
I’ve had many middle-of-the-night brushes with the little buggers. I see ’em all the time on my 1:30 a.m. rides home from work. They’re always running out in the road, their cute little nails scratching along the pavement as they — stupidly — run parallel to my bike like the cartoon character trying to outrun the falling tree. Stupid bunnies.
I see them so frequently, in fact, I assumed them to be nocturnal.
Not so. They are, in fact, crepuscular — a fancy word that means they’re most active at dawn and dusk and, creepily enough, on moonlit nights.
Now there’s a scary thought: Dozens of fuzzy bunnies frolicking about in the moonlight, just waiting to bum-rush me, knock me off my bike and leave me for dead.
Hey, it could happen.
