My Dad killed the Easter Bunny.
He didn’t do it on purpose. He didn’t have a twisted, villain-esque background that required a vendetta against the rabbit. His Easters might never have been amazing, but certainly the bunny never did anything directly to cause him harm.
So there was to be no warning of the untimely death of the bunny when we were driving back from the Easter rodeo at Eromanga on the eve of the big day itself (well, the one that counts when you’re a five-year-old and hankering for some chocolate eggs).
It was nearly midnight and there was the flash of a rabbit and then a thud. Kadunk.
It made perfect sense that the Easter Bunny would be out and about. And my Dad confirmed it.
“Well, there goes the Easter Bunny,” he said with the air of ambivalence not usually seen when a father is crushing the hope of their offspring.
I was inconsolable. Easter was the gluttonous dream of every child in the land and here was my father, one parent out of all the parents in the world who managed to ruin it for everyone. He was the patient zero of Easter’s demise. The monster!
But it could be worse. Here are some other ways to ruin Easter (as told to me by various friends).
1. Eat most (or all) of the kids’ eggs before Easter.
You can’t tell me you’ve bought five eggs for each child and they’ve all survived until the Sunday. The Progressive Nibblers among us will laugh in the face of any suggestion otherwise. Of course, the kids will never know that you’d originally intended to give them five eggs so where’s the harm, right? Oh, only the crushing guilt…and you can’t eat guilt.