Day 20: The tortoise and the bunny

 Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 20: The tortoise and the bunny

This morning I received an email from a friend who bought 160-gallon tank for her turtle, Penny. This reminded me of a time when, back in South Africa, I had neighbors who had a tortoise.

This tortoise, Alexander, would lazily crawl around the garden, sit by the gate watching traffic, or sit for hours in the sun.

Every now and then though, Alexander would get mischievous and park himself on the driveway to the house. When my neighbors, Paul and Linda, came home they wouldn’t be able to drive the car inside the garage because Alexander was blocking the way.

Picking Alexander up and moving him was not an option as he weight in the region of 50 kg (110 lbs) and Paul couldn’t really get a good grip on him. So the only option was to wait until Alexander moved or tempt him with something to make him move.

My son, Dieter, a small boy in the days was eager to meet the tortoise but Paul and Linda were not keen on letting Dieter close to their pet. Even though tortoises are friendly, and recognize their owners, there was no telling what Alexander would do when faced with a strange child.

So we took Dieter to the Bunny and Tortoise Park in Benoni. This park is home to a great number of big tortoises who are used to humans. Small children are even allowed to sit on them.

When we arrived at the park though, Dieter didn’t exactly take a shine to the tortoises, even seemed a little afraid of them. Instead the bunnies had his undivided attention. 

He looked at them, he wanted to catch one, but the bunnies weren’t keen on being caught. They saw him coming and hopped away.

Not getting anywhere in his catching endeavors he turned to mom and dad and pleaded “Can you catch me one?”

We didn’t think we would do much better than him but okay, we would give it a shot. While my ex-husband chased a small black bunny, I went in hot pursuit of a brown one. The both of us walked, ran and even plunged onto the ground a few times in an effort to catch a bunny, but the little buggers were faster than we were.

Tired, dusty and more than a little sore from hitting the ground several times, I eventually, eventually caught the brown bunny and handed it to Dieter. He looked down on the bunny and said, “I actually wanted a white one.” 

Well, thought luck, it had taken me the best part of half an hour to catch the brown one and it would have to do.

If he had asked to hold a small tortoise I gladly would have gotten him one, but catching another bunny … no thank you, those little buggers were way too fast.