The world is going to shit and I’m worried about a baby bunny July 17, 2006

A discovered a wounded baby bunny on our lawn this morning. I left a message with the local animal orphanage and am waiting for them to call me back. Their message said to leave it in a warm, dark place with no food or water. Well, warm it is. I mean, it’s 9:00 a.m. and already a million degrees outside, supposed to go up to about a billion. But I can’t bring this wounded animal into my house. I mean, for one thing, I’ve got cats. I’ve covered her with a mesh waste basket, trapping a few green flies in with her, keeping a hundred buzzing around on the outside. She’s just sitting there, waiting to die.

And it feels like such a rich white person thing to do. Not that I’m rich, but you know what I mean. I’m expending all of this energy on a small baby bunny in my front yard when there are whole species going extinct and starving children and a new war in the middle east and we’re destroying the environment and chipping away at women’s right to choose and, and, and….

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The orphanage just called me back and said I should put her in a shoe box and bring her to the animal hospital down the street where they will decide if she’s a candidate for rescue or euthanize her, either of which option would clearly be better than the current one. The woman was perceptive, though. She could tell how uncomfortable I am with the idea of picking the bunny up (why why why? I want to help but I can only get so close? I can try to blow the flies away and put a garbage can over the thing, but I don’t want to get my hands literally dirty. I hate myself for this.) and is going to see if someone from the organization is nearby and can come do it for me.

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A young woman just came by to retrieve the bunny. She said the wound looks bad but sometimes it’s deceptive and they can be saved. Even if she can’t, it is better than to be eaten alive by flies in my front yard. I guess I know where my next donation will be headed.