Maybe I’m Nuts…But…I saw something a few days ago that by all that is holy, gave me pause. It’s not often that I am GIVEN pause (nor is it often that I utilize the phrase “by all that is holy”) but it DID and I AM.
I had just stepped out onto my front porch, for a little fresh air, and was just blankly staring at what I simply can’t remember when I heard the unmistakable sound of a hummingbird. We had just days before placed our hummingbird feeder on its hook (as a friend had reported seeing HER first hummingbird of the year the day before) and this was the first at OUR house.
I turned toward the feeder JUST in time to see the little bugger blast away. Intently, I watched as it flew (I refer to it as “It” as I hadn’t the time nor was I close enough to, determine whether “It” was a he or she) off into the wild blue yonder. I like hummingbirds (though there not much meat on them) and was happy to have actually seen my first of the year. Such a sighting in THESE parts means we are surely nearer to actual (rather than imagined) spring.
That’s when I saw it.
From out of the clear blue sky it came…at a diagonal…from my right to my left in a downward direction. A missile traveling at near warp velocity!
WHAM!!!
The comet struck the corner of the roof of the house next door with TREMENDOUS force.
I WAS…given pause.
It was neither a comet nor a missile but indeed, it was a RABBIT. Yep…a flying rabbit. A FLYING RABBIT which had JUST descended and IMPACTED my neighbor’s house! It had struck with the deadly accuracy of a laser guided implement of destruction. From its point of impact (again…”Its”…see above) it bounced nearly 15 full feet and slammed…I MEAN SLAMMED…into the ground between our house and our shed…LIKE A BAG OF WET (furry) CEMENT!!!
It’s funny how, in a mere moment, one can have a flashback. I flashed back to that old WKRP episode where they tossed live turkeys out of the helicopter…and Les Nessman used that very line…”They’re hitting the ground like bags of wet cement!”
It was a GREAT episode.
Rabbits, I THOUGHT (initially) were rather flightless creatures and clearly, while THIS particular one WAS airborne, I came to the conclusion that indeed, the reason FOR their flightlessness MUST be because they are SEVERLY landing challenged. I must also assume that the reason I had never before seen a flying rabbit is because they clearly understand their own landing issues and rather than risk the inevitable (bouncing off the neighbor’s roof) they prefer land based operations.
In retrospect, I now have a much better understanding of why Santa employs flying reindeer rather than Dumper, Jumper, Thumper and Hoppy… Cuddles, Cotton, Drooper and Floppy…as the ground between houses would certainly be littered with carcasses.
Reindeer (it seems) CAN make roof landings while rabbits…can’t.
Well…at this point I was COMPELLED to get a closer look and before I was able to take two steps off my front porch…I was AGAIN…given pause…as a HAWK came SWOOPING in like an EAGLE (eagles actually swoop in like HAWKS and hawks like eagles which is a greatly misunderstood scientific conundrum which now, thanks to me, is clear to you…you’re welcome) and SNATCHED up that which was, by any account, half way to Hasenpfeffer and away IT (again…see above) went!I know what you’re thinking.
YOU’RE thinking that the hawk had, somewhere else, dispatched of the rabbit and then, while on its way home from the rabbit take out joint, dropped it and then retrieved it. Right? Huh? Right? Well…NOT SO FAST. We ALL know ALL too well that what seems OBVIOUS is OFTEN not the case and given ALL that I had just witnessed…I believe I know EXACTLY what occurred.
Allow me…(ahem)
CLEARLY and without a SHADOW of a doubt…as the first hummingbird of the hummingbird season left the hummingbird feeder as hummingbirds ARE want to do (from time to time) and went SCREEMING off (and YOU thought they only hummed) into the wide open spaces…quite certainly IT (see above) scared the rabbit BEJEEZES out of the rabbit (who was already in full flight and as we all know…rabbits ARE fairly high strung) who then suffered a midair coronary causing it to plummet from a GRAND altitude achieving what is known as “terminal velocity” (a term which can and IS often used to describe the speed of the moving walkway at the airport) before it crashed into the neighbor’s roof and ricochet to ITS (see above…again) momentary resting place in front of my shed only to be spirited away by a hawk who as we all SHOULD know, just hand around waiting for varmints who are more apt than not, to make poor landings.
Or…maybe I’m nuts.
I’m Craig Andresen
