by Tony Lastowka
It’s Monday morning, 11 A.M. as I meet the Easter Bunny at Plymouth Meeting Mall, but before we can talk, he has some mothers, eager to take pictures of their screaming children with the bunny. I wait off to the side and observe with silent awe as he dances around the children, drawing a smile from some, and sending others screaming to their parents. “How cute!” I say to myself.
Later that day, its time for bunny to go on break. As we had arranged, I meet him in the back rooms of the mall for my interview.
Tony Lastowka: So Easter Bunny, how are you doing today?
Easter Bunny: To tell you the truth, Tony, today has been a below-average day. All these parents insist on taking pictures no matter how much their kids scream. Someday, these kids are going to be in therapy full time, I tell you. There was this one seven-year-old who I was ready to throttle.
TL: That’s intriguing, Easter Bunny!
EB: Please, call me EB.
TL: Well then, EB what say we get this interview underway?
EB: Sure.
TL: Why don’t we start at the beginning? Just how did you get to be The Easter Bunny? We’re you simply born that way, or was there special training?
EB: I wasn’t born a bunny; that took dedication and practice. You see, The Easter Bunny was actually a project started by the CIA several decades before anyone knew the CIA existed. Originally, the plan was that the bunnies would be able to spy on the world, but in the early fifties, the program was dropped. It was soon picked up by another organization. That organization, which controls the whole operation today has been around since well before the birth of Christianity.
TL: I see, well if you weren’t born a bunny, then how did you get the way you are today?
EB: Well, we all start out...
TL: We? You mean there are multiple bunnies?
EB: Oh yes, nobody knows how many, but there are a lot of us. We all share a sort of collective consciousness, and we are never sure how many we have got.
Anyhow, as I was saying, when we start out, we are issued a bunny suit. Then we go through a rigorous five year training program in arts such as ninjitsu and several forms of mind control, additionally, we read a mile high stack of greeting cards. When this training is over, the Chinese water torture seems like a nerf toy. As we train, the suit slowly begins to become one with our bodies. I actually can still remove mine, but it is becoming more difficult. You see, the bunny suit is a feat of bio-engineering. For example, some people wonder how we can see, and the fact is the whole thing is just one big eye. It usually overwhelms the mind the first time it is put on, but the training makes it better.
TL: Wow, EB, that’s amazing!
EB: It sure is, Tony.
TL: Why all that training, did you ever have any bunny casualties?
EB: Yeah, well now its pretty good with a 95% survival rate for first year hoppers (that’s what we call rookies). Back in the beginning, we were told to look to our left and right and see who was there, because in four weeks, we’d probably never get a chance to see them again.
TL: Zounds! Moving along, where do you get all that candy from? And don’t you have something better to do with it than give it to all those rotten kids? I know there are a few good eggs out there, but for the most part kids just seem to be rotten these days.
EB: We recycle the candy. You see, we give all the kids candy, because if we only gave it to the good kids, the bad kids would just beat them up and take if from them, but after we have given it out, we go out and steal all the candy from the bad kids. Actually, when I say “we,” it's really the Department of Reclamation. They are sort of like special-ops.
TL: And I always thought it was my mom...
EB: It was.
TL: Oh good... I think.
EB: That whole process, from delivery to reclamation only takes 48 hours, 72 in the high incident areas. The candy is still fresh. You know, nobody likes stale candy.
TL: Uh huh.
EB: Sometimes, when the kids are really rotten, we take them along with the candy.
TL: You take the kids?! What do you do with them?
EB: The majority of them are made into slave laborers. After a few years in the bunny mines, they are ready to go out into the world and become fine politicians. The ones that are too ugly to be politicians, well, we use them for food. And then the really pretty ones, they are breeded, and then we sell them to princes around the world as slaves. We make a hefty profit that way. It finances a large part of our operation. The technological bunny infrastructure costs quite a bit you know.
TL: Surely this can’t be your only source of income. I know that slaves turn a hefty profit from the right princes, but there are only so many...
EB: That's why we have another source: photos.
TL: You mean at the mall?
EB: No, the Laundromat. Of course I mean the mall!
TL: But don’t you feel bad, taking all that money from those innocent kids? I thought you we’re doing this all for the kids.
EB: Ah, but we aren’t taking it from the kids; we are taking it from their parents!
TL: Well how does it make you feel anyway? I mean when all those kids follow you around through the mall?
EB: Oh, sometimes it's tiring, but it's necessary. You see, when they sit in our laps, that allows us the chance to implant all kinds of electrodes and monitoring devices. We do it to everyone at a young age. For instance, right now your heart rate is 82 and you are thinking about that woman you saw at the grocery store.
TL: Astounding! What else do you do?
EB: You know those pictures we take? Don’t believe for a second we don’t keep copies! We use them in our databases, and then down the line, when someone blatantly too old to be on sitting on laps comes and gets his picture, we cross-reference it. In some cases, if you turn out to be a cool person, we let you go. Usually though, you won’t even make it to the parking lot.
TL: What about those jerks who try to pull your heads off?
EB: Well, the clean-up crews usually deal with those people. I don’t really have the details. Let’s just say they are “efficient.”
TL: Wow, that’s scary. Hmm... Oh yes, what about deliveries? How do you get into so many houses undetected?
EB: Well, you know suburbia?
TL: Yeah, I live there.
EB: We built that. Everything from civil engineering right down to the selling of plastic lawn chairs.
TL: No!
EB: Yes, and we control the cities too. Having all this influence, we have put our own security holes in so we can get around.
TL: Fascinating. What about voyeurism? Do you ever take a chance to look at the people sleeping? See if they sleep naked or anything?
EB: Well, as is probably obvious, we Easter Bunnies are on a tight schedule and don’t usually have time for such distractions. Sometimes, if we are running ahead of schedule, we do take a peek.
TL: Ever find people having sex? Ever join in?
EB: Well, it is spring, mating season. Sometimes we find people, but this particular holiday tends to limit the libido. As for joining in, it’s the same as everything else. Sometimes. Usually we leave that to the Valentine's Day people. When we do get involved, it’s part of an incentive plan.
TL: Have the people ever noticed you spying on them? What about when you join in their intimacies? Eventually they have go to talk about it!
EB: As I said before, most of our operatives are trained in various forms of mind control and can deal with such situations. Sometimes, when it gets out of hand, we have to reclaim the whole lot. If you ever had a whole neighboring family move out without much notice, that was most likely us.
TL: Amazing. One last thing before you go, since I can see the lines starting up again: what about Santa?
EB: Another operation. He does his job well, I guess, but we don’t like his liberal interpretations of naughty and nice. He pretty much gives toys to everyone and it ends up ruining it for the good people. And as for the elves -- nice guys, good at what they do, but a lot more expendable than a bunny.
TL: Well, EB, its been enlightening. One more thing, think I can get a free picture?
EB: Maybe.
