EASTER MUTATIONS by Kathryn Merrifield

So, this morning as I retreat back to bed after the Easter baskets have been officially breached by three kids, only to discover that the stupid Costco prepacks had the nerve not to include one single chocolate Easter Bunny!

Maybe Costco realized that the Easter Bunny didn’t want anyone to eat its image – only the repack did include and disproportionately (as with all Costco’s lifetime supplies of all things material, stands) offer, a very large bag of rabbit-shaped jelly and sugar granule-covered candies.

Who is the Easter bunny anyway, but some mutated rodent that somehow enters my home when I’m sleeping as though it seeped through the walls or a rodent-hole, delivers full baskets of what anyone today would consider manufactured poison, then randomly places hard-boiled and decorated eggs around the yard to be hunted and found and also horded by the greediest and most competitive of seekers? 

I’ve offset the timing of the Easter egg hunt for a while blaming the neighbors who don’t yet want to wake to screaming children.  Partly true.  I need more time to wake.

Opening the Easter baskets was accompanied by more religion questions that tend to be vaguely answered.  Leo’s genealogy project required tracing his ancestors, and I’m assuming that’s where his attempt to try to understand the relationship with God, Mary and Joseph, since Jesus is also God.  He said that Mary came first, which, of course I liked, as it supports Gaia and women as creators.  Only issue here is that if God came first and Jesus gets to use God’s name, it carries with it the notion that Jesus can do God’s work, therefore making it the first reported case of nepotism recorded in history.  If not the first, the most renowned. 

Somehow we landed on the spelling of words.  Luke is compelled to destroy all dictionaries because, he said, it’s easier to look up words on the internet as the dictionary lettering is too small and the definition too complicated.

Leo asked how to spell the word donut.  I told him, “D-O-N-U-T.”  He argued that it was spelled, D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T.  We talked about phonetic spelling, and how the English language makes it impossible to spell but allowed for spelling tests to be given because if all words were spelled phonetically, as they sound, then no one would have to work at spelling.  When he asked who makes up the spelling of these words, I told him it was probably someone like him who wants to rename our foster dog.  Her shelter name is, “Spring,” 

Leo’s rename preference is, “Douglas.”

And that is why I prefer conversation with my three children over conversation with anyone.

I also know that the Easter bunny, if it’s anything, is really a mutated bunny responsible for pushing that large slab of rock out of the way so Jesus could get out.  Alternatively, it’s to ensure that we’d both have an occasion to get together, eat, and have something to talk about besides weather.

We also really like comic book characters here.  And since Thumper is the only other popular rabbit in American lore, bunnies are the making of extreme sports.  But more on that later…