The Hollow Bunny

by Robert Keats

I noticed a pattern developing midway through my wonder years. It was spring, and the world was once again filled with chocolate Easter bunnies. Some were solid chocolate, others were hollow. I always got the hollow bunny. And still do. Not by choice, and not because of bad luck. It goes beyond bad luck – like walking into a great bakery, getting the ticket with the number “1” on it, and finding out there are a hundred people ahead of you.

At six years old, I began to realize that, in some weird way, my life was being defined by the hollow bunny. It was affecting my world view. Not that I had suddenly figured out how to deal with disappointment, I hadn’t. But I did learn to embrace irony.

Simply put, the world is divided into two kinds of people – those who get the hollow bunny and those who get the solid one. It has nothing to do with fame, fortune, looks, brains, talent, or even likeability. It’s just a difference in mindset.

Take, for example, Larry David in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” – which, by the way, is the definitive title for those of us in the hollow bunny crowd. If Larry took a chocolate bunny to his doctor and had it x-rayed to find out if it was solid or hollow – and was told it was solid – by the time he got home, he’d be biting into a hollow bunny.

But the hollow bunny isn’t just reserved for comedians. Many presidents wind up with it. Recipients have included Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bush 41.

Ronald Reagan enjoyed a lifetime of solid bunnies, even during Iran-Contra. And Bill Clinton still does, despite having been impeached.

Even George Bush gets the solid bunny, when, the fact is, he shouldn’t get a bunny at all.

Make your own list, pick your own people – friends, family, celebrities, politicians, TV and movie characters, it doesn’t matter. You’ll know right away who gets which one. And if you don’t know, let me take this opportunity to welcome you to the world of the hollow bunny.

Robert Keats is a screenwriter and humorist.

Share on Facebook

Pin It

Comments

0 #3 OneMarsha 2008-03-23 12:17

Mr. Keats,
Haven't you found that the H.B. recipients are those who have gone on to do great works in their lives? I believe that those of us who received the H.B. were given the opportunity to fill them with love and good deeds, while those receiving the S.B. had nothing else to give because theirs were already full (well, perhaps, with the exception of President Ronald Reagan).

Quote

0 #2 CarolenaAZ 2008-03-23 09:10

What talent you have, Mr. Keats, and not just passed down from your famous forefather. As the middle of three children, I, too, always got the H.B. and every Christmas one of my gifts would be thrown out with the wrapping paper. I took it in stride and figured that these were my little "crosses" to bear. Besides, I could finish the H.B. in one sitting. As an adult, I often buy myself the S.B. but I can never finish it. So I stick it in the freezer. When I was a child, I would stick the Valentine candy Daddy bought me in the freezer. By the time I remembered it again--a month or so later--it would be gone. My mother always told me it was a shame to waste chocolate and she did not think I wanted it. I told her she was a cruel and unnatural Mother. Several years ago I was dating someone who was as big a chocoholic as Mommy. We were watching a movie one night when he asked if I had any chocolate. "In the freezer," I said. A few minutes later he walked into the family room with the remnants of an S.B., a huge grin on his face. "Are you sure you don't want this?" he asked. "No, go ahead." Like a child on Christmas morning this 6'3" 200 pound man devoured the chocolate. That is when I discovered something worse than the H.B. Apparently one can only freeze chocolate for so long. This particular S.B. had been in the freezer for at least seven years. Evidently, that was too long. BF ran for the W.C. and he never ate chocolate from my freezer again. ;-)

Quote

0 #1 iankerr 2008-03-23 06:02

Nice article...

You were probably blessed to get the H.B, for these novelties are usually made of gut-, health-, and sanity-destroying inferior MILK chocolate.

I suggest you write an Ode to a Hollow Bunny, in the spirit of your famous namesake.

And remember: the other Keats was dead at 25 - poor bugger had his H.B. confiscated!

Best wishes,

IAN.

P.S. I think I'll make this BIGGER...

Quote

Refresh comments list
RSS feed for comments to this post