A Portrait of KillGore Destructo 3000

I’ve had my rabbit Gorie since she was a baby and so the only thing she’s really ever known is me, Julien, and our apartment. I found her on Craigslist, and because I'm a hero, I saved her from this horrible family that I've come to think of as the Malevolent Bunny gods of Greek Bunny Lore, creating life just to destroy it on a whim. I named her Killgore Destructo 3000, which should have clued them in that I was probably not a suitable adopter. I just regret that I didn't take more than one of the bunnies from her litter. They had two rabbits that they bred every few months and gave away the babies to like, anyone. Just email them on craigslist and they will hand you a tiny life, no questions asked.  I mean, who the hell am I?

"Please do not eat me."

Beyond the fact that Gorie's mom will almost absolutely develop some type of painful gynecological condition and die horribly from all this, bunnies generally have about four babies in every litter, and they can breed every fucking month because their gestation period is only 30 days. Conservatively, that's like, a million babies per rabbit, in the hands of fucking idiots who are going to just toss them at random passersby who will in turn give them to their ugly, slobbery children for Easter so they can drag the poor things around by their ears until they die from neglect or abuse or stupidity. That, or they're just handing them right over to butchers so that they can breed and then cook them as well. Pleasant. These are pleasant thoughts.

BABY!

Anyway, Gorie was my introduction into bunny motherhood, and it was a real learning experience. For instance, did you know that rabbits are psychotic? I didn't either, until I rushed Gorie to the vet after she was twisting her head around like a maniac then jumping butt-first through the air in a sort of spaz-leap. Then she'd stand on the floor, helplessly hopping to the left and right while shaking her head like a jittery meth addict. I literally thought she had a neurological condition. When we got to the vet she was like "oh, yeah, bunnies do that when they're happy. It's called a binky, which is a ridiculous word for a ridiculous thing."It is a ridiculous thing, and they all do it. It will scare the crap out of you if you're not ready for it. One minute the bunny is sitting calmly at your feat, the next it's doing a backflip over your knee and then landing looking like it's just as surprised as you are.

Another moment of discovery was when I realized how bunnies lay down, and get ready because it is also ridiculous. You know how dogs and cats and every other normal animal, including humans, crawl into a laying-down position gradually and reasonably? Yeah, bunnies don't do that. See, bunnies don't sleep, really. They take thousands of little micro-naps throughout the day by sitting back on their haunches and cuddling into their own bunny-fat with their eyes wide open (which is terrifying at first). The only way you can tell they're sleeping is because their nose stops moving. They rarely, if ever, close their eyes or blink. They have a clear third eyelid allegedly, but I've never seen it. So how do bunnies relax? Well, on a hot summer afternoon a few days after you take them home, they will be sitting perfectly still, then suddenly and without warning, flop over on one side as if they just got shot with a gun. You will be terrified that your rabbit just died of heat stroke right in front of you.

End position.

To this day it surprises me when any of them lay down (and they do it every day), because it's such a sudden, violent fall. They just twist their bodies like they're going to do a sideways barrel-roll and end up laying down to rest.

Also, did you know bunnies eat their poops right out of their butt for added nutrition? Now you know, and you can never un-know it.

Here's a visual. And yes, that's my bed.

Gorie spent her childhood running from one end of my bedroom to the other, eating all of my worldly possessions, hiding in inconveniently small spots, getting progressively too big to fit in the small spots but still trying to fit in them, and also sitting on my butt and eating the ends of my hair when I laid face-down on my bed. Which is weird, even for a rabbit. None of my other rabbits eat hair. 

In a panicked moment when I thought I lost her, I opened this drawer to grab a sweater and go out and look for her. 

She's probably the most intuitive of all the three rabbits, mostly because she's spent so much time with me. She uses this intelligence to avoid doing anything I want her to do and to be a general all-around diva, all the time. For instance, if I have treats like baby carrots or some coveted piece of fruit, she will be the most excited ever up until the second I give a piece to Alfie before I give it to her, because he's closer to me or he grabs it first. Then, you would think I spit in her face the way that she dramatically turns and goes to sulk in a hidey-hole. 

She also won't take a treat that I give her to reward her for something that sucks, like cutting nails or taking medicine. She just turns her nose up at it until I'm out of sight, and then gobbles it up before I come back. I've literally hid behind a door and watched her do this. Alfie has picked up this bad habit of shaming me for my bad deeds, except he learned quickly that it's a bad idea because Gorie will take the opportunity to snatch his treat away while he's being sulky. 

...the quick and the dead.

She looks like a hare, but an exceptionally pretty one with gorgeous details like the white spots on her eyes and jawline and the little black line at the tips of her ears. Like the Cinderella of field rabbits, except that her prince looks like a little crazy homeless man who sneezes constantly. 

Love.