"Oh good grief!" My friend looked
up from her phone. "That was a text from Auntie Doreen.
I've got to get something for my cousin's rabbit."
{Q: What do
you get a rabbit for Christmas? A: New batteries.} Only it wasn't that
sort of rabbit, which made things a bit more difficult.
"What on earth can I get?" my friend
went on, as she continued wrapping gifts for her dog. "Rabbits don't
play with toys, or anything like that. What sort of person buys a
Christmas present for a rabbit?" I knew the answer to this
one. One of my daughter's friends is mad on rabbits; if anyone could help
us, she could. I picked up my own phone, then realized that half past ten
on Christmas Eve night probably wouldn't be the best time to call.
Not everyone is a last-minute person like me.
Oh, those people crowding the supermarkets at a minute past midnight on
Christmas Eve morning probably think they are but, believe me, they are mere
amateurs. True last-minute, homework-on-the-bus types like me want to do
our Christmas shopping after work on Christmas Eve, when we really can't put it off any longer. Except, by then, the shops were
either closed or had nothing left. Whatever happened to the comradely
atmosphere of a few years ago, when I could shop at 6pm with glazed-eyed men
and carefree schoolchildren? At least the Mayans gave me a bit of an
excuse this year. {Darling, I wanted to spend my last
hours on earth in the warm with you, not with
irritable strangers on the cold streets of Hull.}
I suppose, that with all these pets to buy for now,
people are just having to become more organized. Especially the
retailers. You can now get cards for almost every imaginable species
and combination of recipients, even in Yorkshire. I found
a very attractive card addressed to, "My daughter and her
girlfriend" - nothing wrong with that, except it was better than any I
could find for my daughter and her boyfriend. Actually, I could
probably have found a nicer card to "My daughter and her
cat". Or just, "To the cat". I settled for one that
said, "To both of you". But I wonder now, how many rabbits
received the same card?
