Oliver's Principles

We know the weekend will be long whenever Oliver decides it’s time for a visit. Thankfully it only happens a few times a year. Or so I have to remind my wife when I tell her he’s coming and watch her luminous smile fade to black. Not that I can blame her.  His visits always require a tedious last-minute Oliver-proofing of the house, which my wife finds especially frustrating, as illustrated by the obscenities that news of his arrival invariably draws from her otherwise adorable mouth.

“That fucking sanctimonious ass-hole,” she will say, her little whiskers aquiver, as she peels the photos off the refrigerator door and stuffs them behind the cereal boxes in the pantry closet. “To think he refused to come to Annie and Christopher’s wedding. ‘I can’t in good conscience condone this kind of behavior,’” she sneers, capturing quite well his strangely affected continental accent. “It’s not like we actually want you there, you prick…”

In moments like these I find it’s better that I shut up and help with the tidying rather than try to defend him—or even admit the truth and say that I am in complete agreement with her. Adding fuel to the fire can be a dangerous proposition in such close living quarters.

The truth is, my cousin Oliver is an impossible character hell-bent on making his own life miserable, even if it means taking us down with him in the process. So ashamed is he of his origins, he would rather have been born a cockroach, or one of those tiny parasitic catfish you find in the Amazon—you know, the ones that will swim up a man’s urine stream, than accept the cruel hand fate has supposedly dealt him by making him a member of our modest but flourishing species of rabbit, Sylvilagus floridanus, or eastern cottontail, if you prefer.

And this is the problem with these self-hating types: if they would confine their hatred to themselves, as their character description stipulates, it would be absolutely fine! But they don’t only hate themselves. They hate anyone who even vaguely reminds them of themselves. And when you’re a rabbit, let’s face it, physically, behaviorally, philosophically, we are not a hugely varied species. We have our little rabbit ways that we live our little rabbit lives by.

Melanie (my wife) sees the problem more simply: “He’s just got his balls in a vise cause he’s never gotten laid.”

And sadly this is true.

You see, Oliver has one mortal fear: that he might accidentally have sexual relations with a member of his family. And when you lead the kind of existence we lead, this is a legitimate concern—an occupational hazard if you prefer, for which there really is no practical solution. So if you are an unduly principled member of our species with concerns such as these, let’s face it, your chances of procreating are stymied, to put it mildly. You can’t carry a DNA kit with you everywhere you go. You can’t ask the cute little thing who hangs out in the neighbor’s raised bed to spit into a test-tube and give you eight to ten business days for the results to come back before issuing her an invitation to your warren… Much less when you look like Oliver. Poor bastard. That he should have been cursed with such unfortunate features… Some ironies are particularly cruel.

To think of the hours of lectures on ~The Perils of Inbreeding~ that Melanie and I have been subject to… Meanwhile, our thirty-six children (or is it thirty-seven?) are beautifully proportioned, in spite of Melanie and I being... let’s just say very closely related. Yet Oliver is the one who looks like the freak by-product of alcoholic first cousins. No wonder he puts on those airs—as though he were the one surviving descendent of that last great aristocratic family wiped out by blood-thirsty revolutionaries. As though he were carrying, alone, the burden of our flawed humanity on his sloped little bunny shoulders!

“What time does Oliver-the-Martyr get here?” my wife—as usual, completely attuned to my thoughts—asks me. “I need to let Lisa know.”

Because Melanie and I have a plan—one she claims was her idea, though I’m fairly certain I came up with it first. (To be filed in the “not worth it” category of battles. Trust me.)  “He should be here around five,” I reply, checking my watch. “Shit,” I mutter, as I realize this is less than an hour away. “We have to hide the babies.”

In addition to being the proud parents of thirty-seven children (I’d almost forgotten Drew—don’t tell him), we are the even prouder grand-parents of dozens upon dozens more. What can I say: the males in our family are insatiable. (Ask Melanie if that isn’t exactly how she likes it!) But, according to Oliver, we are defying the divine laws of nature with our unscrupulous behavior. And on the occasion of his last visit, he was being so annoying that the only way we could shut him up was by swearing on the heads of our progeny that we would try our darnedest, from that moment forward, to curtail our “wanton procreating.”

Eesh. If ever there had been an empty promise…

“Cathy said we could stash them at hers,” Melanie mumbles as she stuffs a fourth baby between her teeth. I grab another four and attempt to roll a fifth with my front paws.

Cathy is our eldest. Our independent one who insisted on moving into her own house the minute she brought home her first paycheck. I say independent, though she did build her burrow barely five yards away from ours. Not that I would ever complain. If all my children could live near us forever I’d be the happiest of fathers.

We’ve barely returned from dropping off the last bunny when the telltale smell of Oliver’s cologne alerts us of his arrival. Dapper as always, his cedar and rosemary perfume could singe the scent receptors of even the most determined of bloodhounds. He must bathe in it, poor guy.  It’s how he compensates for his club foot… and his face…

“Hello, my dear cousins,” he says in that over-the-top proclamatory voice he uses to announce himself whenever he enters a room. “It’s been much too long.”

I take his hat and pretend not to notice as he performs a quick survey of the room in search of proof of my and Melanie’s debauchery.

Too late, I notice he has clocked the soil-caked imprint of the babies’ nest we didn’t have time to sweep away. “We’re empty-nesters, alright,” I moan in a melancholy voice.

Melanie echoes my sentiment with a dramatic sigh as she emerges from the kitchen carrying the tea tray. “We were so happy to hear you were coming. We lead a very quiet life these days.” With another sigh she ceremoniously lays out three teacups and teaspoons.

Noticing the number, Oliver’s whiskers twitch. “Are we expecting someone else?”

“Why yes we are!” Melanie replies in a brighter voice. “My friend Lisa. She’s from my book club. The moment I found out she was a French Literature major I knew she had to meet you.”

“Your ‘friend’ Lisa?” Oliver asks, not even attempting to hide his suspicion.

“I mean… she’s more of an acquaintance, really,” Melanie says. “She’s the one in the book club who always wants to talk about the book. We’ve considered pretending the club is broken up just so we can get rid of her—but don’t get me wrong,” she adds quickly. “She’s lovely. Just, not book club material… you know? With her ‘Master’s in Voltaire’… in the same way you aren’t, you know?”

“I do know,” Oliver says, suitably flattered. Oliver has a PhD in Voltaire. Or something like that.

As if on cue we hear some scratching at the door. “That must be her!” Melanie cries, scampering toward the entrance. “Oh. I should warn you, Oliver. Lisa’s just a little older. Though I know you have a thing for more… mature females, am I right?”

Oliver is too busy adjusting his tweed vest to register the hint of snark in my wife’s voice.

“Anyway. You’ll see,” Mel goes on. “She always smells amazing…”

Sure enough, in wafts lovely Lisa floating on a veritable cloud of lavender essence.

To be honest, I’m a little embarrassed for Oliver, who is barely able to hide his attraction for the female creature who has just entered our midst. Not that I can blame him. For once he can allow himself the normal, warm-blooded reaction of the male of our species, unimpeded by the fear of accidentally committing an act of sin.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to jump her right here right now in front of us all.

But Oliver’s capacity for self-mortification never ceases to amaze. “You are… a friend?” he asks again for good measure, a tremor in his voice, as he takes Lisa’s paw and brings it to his muzzle.

Lisa glances nervously at Melanie who smiles back encouragingly.

The mating dance of the intellectual. Waiting for grass to grow would be more exciting.

And then, inexplicably, Oliver hops over to my wife, abandoning Lisa, and says, “Cousin Melanie, why don’t you let me help you get dinner together? Todd, surely you still have that special edition of the Fables of La Fontaine gathering dust somewhere? The one I gave you for your wedding? I’m sure Lisa would love to see that.”

“Oliver,” I reply with some force, as 1. The guy obviously needs help; and 2. I have less than zero desire to be stuck here with Lisa leafing through some fancy French collection of fables. (I’m not entirely sure we didn’t actually donate it to our local library a while back.) “Don’t be ridiculous. Let me help Mel in the kitchen while you show Lisa your book. If it’s anywhere, it’ll be at the top of those shelves. Grab that stool over there. Lisa: hold his legs, he doesn’t like heights.”

I disappear around the corner as quickly as I can and grab a second knife to help Melanie with the vegetables. We feel a little silly as we attempt to chop as quietly as possible so we can hear what’s happening next door—especially when the knife slips and the sound of the blade hitting the cutting board makes us jump.

Soon, Melanie is standing by a pile of chopped carrots taller than she is. With her face frozen in a half-smile, I notice she’s holding her kitchen shears out in front of her, like a weird sort of sexual divining rod. “Do you think they’re done?” she whispers.

“God willing,” I say, meaning it. Because it’s not just for Oliver’s sake that we need him and Lisa to take care of business. It’s for all of our sakes.

I peer around the corner, bracing for the worst, because I wouldn’t put it past that moron to somehow mess up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but observe with satisfaction and more than a little relief that the deed is done.

It’s a lucky thing, isn’t it, that we gave away that stupid book? Because had Oliver been able to pull it out, I feel certain those two would have spent this time piously poring over those gold-laced pictures rather than doing what any normal pair of rabbits would do when accorded a quiet moment alone.

I saunter back into the kitchen and grin. “Time to pull out the champagne, Mel baby!” Beaming and victorious, Melanie leaps into my arms. You see, now that Oliver has slept with his grand-mother, he really has no leg to stand on.