A Re-Evaluation of Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

The December 1st post at Postscripts put an uncontrollable twitch in my left eye. The specific line that caused this odd tick read "Blue Ion wants to know if you said "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" today. Did you?"

I DO say Rabbit to myself the first of every month....but Mary and I have both banned the saying of RABBIT in the house. The memory of the last time it was said aloud in our house by Papa Bear is the stuff of rage and tears!

It all began some 25 years ago when Papa Bear was a student at USC. His college girlfriend taught him the rules and he then taught his future girlfriends and EXTREMELY close friends the rules. The rules as he passed them on pretty much stated that you said RABBIT to someone else who was in the know. The first one to say RABBIT had good luck for the entire month. The other person would not have bad luck, but he/she/they would not get the exceptional good luck as the first person. If saying it on the first day of the month is exceptional....just imagine what saying it on the first day of the month would mean.

This is exactly where the horror story ends....January 1st, 2006. Our daughter, who was nine at the time, was staying up for her very first New Years Eve. I was prepared to make it special for her with Sparkling Cider, hats, horns and everything required to bring in the New Year. By the time we get to the countdown, she is getting pretty tired. We start yelling 10!...... 9!........ 8!...... 7!...... 6!....... 5! .......4! ......3! I am geared up to yell Happy New Year! and throw my arms around Papa Bear for a kiss and jump around the house with Mary..... 2!........It's just about to happen...... 1!...... Hap..."RABBIT!!!", Papa Bear yells at the top of his lungs. Our poor, tired daughter is in tears, runs shrieking to her room, and slams the door. I wind up yelling at Papa Bear for ruining Mary's first New Years. Papa Bear is unable to see why we are such poor sports just because he played his cards right and won the best of luck for the entire year.

I finally convince Papa Bear that his ill gotten winnings have spent the whole family's luck for the year. As I recall, anything that you do on January 1, you will be doing for the rest of the year. It is for this reason that we have always spent time with family, traveled, cooked collards with strick o'lean and hoppin' john and whatnot. The way I saw it, this Rabbit game had gotten way out of hand when celebrating the New Year and hugging your wife took a back seat to RABBIT! Now Mary would be tired, crying and feeling misunderstood the entire year, I would be exasperated and hollering the entire year and Papa Bear would be crying "FOUL", errr I mean "POOR SPORT" the entire year. The only way to make amends was to quit this Rabbit business and have it banned from the house altogether. Papa Bear still plays the game with our son and our best friend's family while Mary and I refuse to participate. Our wounds are still gaping 11 months later.

This is what all ran through my mind in the instant I read: "Blue Ion wants to know if you said "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" today. Did you?" I turned to Papa Bear after letting out a loud exclamation, clicked on the article and read it. Hey! The rules were different for Blue Ion! Had Blue Ion's been in effect, there would have been no residual ill feelings. There would have been no immature competitive positioning. There would have been no occasional 1 am wakenings of our household.

I asked Mary to read the same article. She is siding with those who believe that saying Rabbit only brings bad luck.