Down the Rabbit Hole

A funny thing happened on my way to work…

My home office is a converted section of a large recreation room. It may sound ideal, but the truth is, I was expelled from the actual office because I’m messy. Since my husband desperately needs some place in the house where things aren’t in a state of disarray, we can not share space all the time. In the words of Phoebe Buffay, “I need to live in a land where people can spill.”

My office is also called the play room, and sometimes the “bunny room.” Why, you might ask, does a bunny get the largest room in the house? Because of all the hare hair. His name is Earl, and I love him dearly. But nobody wants to live with Earl because he sheds like a rabbit 20 times his size. And I don’t know if you’re aware, but bunny fur is lighter than air, so it floats around the room 24/7 even when I DO vacuum regularly. I often let him run around the room while I’m working because bunny jumps make me happy.

So, I’m getting ready for a video call with one of my favorite clients, and I decide to go put on a blouse and some jewelry because – after all – I’m a professional. In a rare burst of energized inspiration (remember, I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, so I ration my energy like Nick from New Girl rations gas,) that morning I had voluntarily changed out of my pajama bottoms and put on shorts. And I didn’t even have plans to leave the house! #OverAchiever

Earl chilling out, giving kisses at a dress-up party.

I left the bunny alone for three minutes, got gussied up, and returned with two minutes to spare. I looked around to find the bunny so I could give him a nice pat. Well, he wasn’t in any of his usual hidey-holes, which was weird, because he’s not a great hider.

And then I see it. The grate on top of the floor heater vent was sitting to the side of the greatest hidey-hole known to man and lagomorphs: the HVAC system. Surely he didn’t remove the grate (he doesn’t even have thumbs!) and jump down the rabbit hole? Is that even possible? So I called my son – who is not nearly as attached to the family pet as his sister – for some rational advice. He immediately voiced his concerns in a list because, after all, he is my child:

  1. “If he passes waste down there it’s gonna stink up the whole house.” and
  2. ”If he dies down there, it’s really going to stink up the whole house!” (I told you he wasn’t all that attached.)

He confirmed that, yes, the evidence suggests the rabbit had made a great escape. I called my client with the intention keeping my bunny bind at the back of my mind and continuing with my professional commitment. But she asked how I was doing, and my transparency was met with the understanding of a fellow pet lover, “Go find your bunny!”

I was still the most adulty adult in the room. So I called in for reinforcements. With our favorite neighbor, Linda, on her way over, I had to fess up to my daughter about this strange turn of events. She took it very bravely, but was – like everyone else, in disbelief.

Here’s the thing, when your rabbit falls/hops into the HVAC system, you feel a little bit like Lassie barking to warn that Timmy fell down the well. People don’t believe you and find the need to look down the hidey-hole themselves. Once our neighbor arrived I escorted her to see the cavern created by the now-displaced heater vent. She asked for a flashlight and with the hole illuminated, we could see all the stuff that had accumulated down there. This collection of bunny hair, hay, and scraps of chewed-up cardboard was legitimately a surprise to me. I mean, I’m not the greatest housekeeper, but who knew? Linda looked at me with all the judgment of a mother who had raised her child better than this, and I said, “What? I didn’t even know that vent came off! Are you SUPPOSED to clean down there TOO?” No, she said, I guess not, but her disdain let me know it was gross nonetheless, and in my head I wondered, is THIS was the reason there is always hare hair floating in the room?

“And you’re the generation that is supposed to take care of us Baby Boomers!”, she lamented.

Just then, we heard my daughter yelling from the garage very clearly, “I hear him!” You see, the office/play room (#Ploffice) is on the second floor over the garage, and you can see the duct work as it runs across the ceiling of the garage and leads to – gulp – the machine in the big metal box. We now had enough evidence to begin wrecking my home to save the rabbit.

I looked at the looming metal box and wondered what would happen to Earl if he made it his final destination. I could only imagine the box containing fan blades and such, which conjured up images of the Saturday Night Live sketch about the Bass-O-Matic.

Clearly, we needed an expert. I considered calling our favorite fixer, David the handyman. But the thought of having to write a check for the wrecking of ductwork made me think of my husband, who is getting more adept at handling brouhahas like this after 16 years of marriage. I decided it was best to keep the man apprised of the situation so he could live through the peril with us and not be so mad later when I informed him of the price tag from Earl’s big adventure.

Again, it was like Lassie, my husband didn’t really believe me. Once I insisted that I had NOT lost the bunny somewhere in the house, (but what if I did? I started to doubt myself), he pleaded with me to be very careful taking apart the HVAC system. I asked him, ‘Why, is it dangerous?” I’m imagining the fan blades.

He said, “Not really, I just don’t want you to fall off the ladder.”

Well if THAT’s the most dangerous thing that happens today, I thought, we’re good, because … Bass-O-Matic. Hubby agreed it was time to call in the big guns. The handyman’s scheduler believed my story right away. She made the executive decision to pull him off his current job, where his client bid him luck and cheered, “Go save that bunny!” Alas, he was 30 minutes away.

Never fear! In walked Linda’s husband, Dan, with his toolbox and a can-do attitude. He systematically began removing the duct tape and tearing off the insulation. When he had removed the duct just above the big metal machine, we looked up into the pipe. No bunny. But it had an elbow joint that flattened out at the ceiling, so we couldn’t see if he was in there. “Certainly he will come when offered a treat!”, I mused cheerily. I shook a box of his favorite, Wheat Thins, and tried to woo him into surrender. Then I threw a cracker into the duct work. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it’s still in there.

All the while, Dan was thinking of a Plan B, you know, just in case the rabbit didn’t heed my commands. So he began ripping apart another section of the ductwork. At the same time, Linda suggested we run a hose down from the second floor and push the bunny out that way. Threatening to drown him seemed a little harsh, but I was desperate enough to entertain the idea. When I learned she meant the hose WITHOUT the water, it was a no-brainer.

I ran outside to get the hose and empty it. Here’s a visual: I’m running around the yard holding various sections of the hose above my head and bouncing to try to get all the water out. I should charge my neighbors entertainment fees. I took the hose to the Ploffice and began threading it down the duct work. In the garage, someone flashed a light into the pipe and I heard three words I dreaded, “He’s not there.” They were followed by the phrase that had been plaguing me all day, “Are you SURE he’s not somewhere in your (read: messy, unorganized) house?”

Just then the handyman arrived and, having had 30 minutes to consider the best puns for our situation, said he was ready to “fwee the wabbit.” In a burst of intelligence, my daughter pulled up a picture of the bunny on my phone and showed it to him, just to make sure he pulled the RIGHT animal out of our HVAC system. Well it turned out to be a good thing, because when David got on top of a high ladder and looked DOWN into the big metal machine, he saw a big fluffy bunny butt that he recognized. “Here he is.” Has anyone ever uttered a more beautiful phrase?

Snuggles after a hare-raising experience.

Getting down to business, I instructed him on the proper methods of rescuing rabbits. “You’re going to have to pull him out by his ears. That’s how the mommy bunnies carry them.” I had to ignore the annoying thought that maybe the ears pull off once the bunny becomes an adult because – hello? What choice did we have? It was a fairly tight fit for a rabbit, and even if he WAS obedient enough to come when offered a treat, there was no way he could climb up the tight metal tubing.

At the prospect of pulling bunny ears, David suggested that maybe I should be the one to complete the rescue.

So I climbed up the ladder, looked down and saw that cute little pile of fluff sitting right next to a six-inch wide crevasse. I had a headlamp on, but I couldn’t see the bottom of that crevasse, so I was pretty sure that’s where the Bass-O-Matic parts lived. No pressure, but clearly dropping the bunny into the crevasse would result in Hasenpfeffer.

I climbed up the ladder, reached in, patted him and cooed, “Hi sweet bunny,” trying to hide the stress in my voice of knowing what I was about to do. I couldn’t quite reach his ears, so I climbed further into the machine, ignoring the advice of my wise husband who knew exactly the perils of rabbit rescue without even being there. With my shoulder fully immersed in the metal box I screwed up my courage and my grip and pulled. It wasn’t easy. Earl was not happy with my methods. But in one grand poof of fur, I pulled him up out of the tube and snuggled him. A cloud of hare hair surrounded me and the handyman quipped, “Well that was a hare-raising experience!”

The End.

P.S. If your financial situation has you down, click here for more humor resources.

P.P.S. For more Earl antics, here’s a video of his boxer imitation. (He’s actually just shaking the apple juice off his  paws, post snack.)