A Not Very Easter Story

       In the Spring of my fourteenth year, my best friend and I were just returning from a walk to the neighborhood gas station where we frequently went to buy candy.  It was nearly Easter and so our parents had locked down the snacks normally provided in the cookie jar because they said we'd be getting loads of candy in a few days.
    On this particular day we found solace in a few boxes of Lemonheads and were just making our way home. As we rounded the final hill on the return to my house we saw a bunny in the middle of the road.  Or at least it was a bunny before it got hit by a car. It was now very dead.
    We did the classic sweet little girl thing. Our faces pulled into frowns and we chatted as we walked, "Awww, it's so sad! Bunnies are the cutest. Awww."

      But as we got closer to the dead bunny-- which took awhile because we were pretty far away when we first noticed the thing-- the amazingness of the perfectly preserved body began to edge out our girlyness. First of all, there was a tire tread going right over the center of the body. A perfect tire tread, like the ones you see across the coyote's belly in the Roadrunner cartoons. The bunny's ears were still perked, the insides pink. His fur was the softest of caramel colors and seemed to shimmer as it blew in the light breeze. I'd seen a lot of road kill in my life, but it was always kind of a guessing game as to what it could be. (Hmm, it's brown, it's furry... Cat?  No, it's striped.. Racoon! Definitely racoon. But really you were never positive.)  This dead bunny was so obviously a dead bunny from even a soccer field away that it held our respect.
   "Man, that is one perfect dead bunny," Allison said.

    It was at that moment that the full potential of our situation presented itself.

    Now I can't remember which of us came up with the idea first but before I knew it, Allison and I were running through the front doors of my house on a mission. We raided all my Easter supplies. Cheap pastel baskets, tons of pink and yellow plastic grass, around thirty candy-hued plastic eggs and even a few foil covered chocolates from the previous Easter. (My grandma had a habit of sending these packed in a box with soap and a kid only makes the mistake of eating a Dial-flavored chocolate once.)
      We carted all this stuff back to the road and the site of the dead bunny and got to work. We tossed down plastic eggs, stomping on a few for good effect. The foil chocolates and the Easter grass were dumped around the center yellow line as well, and then, last of all, we nudged an Easter basket beneath the dead bunny's front paw.

      It brings a tear to my eye just remembering how perfect it all was. We had just staged the scene of the Easter Bunny's demise.

I wish I could tell you that this all took place on such a small road that no cars came by that day. Especially cars with children in them. But, no. Allison and I spent the afternoon in fits of laughter as we watched vehicle after vehicle swerve and gawk. We busted a gut watching child after child do that open-mouthed muted wail from the backseat as she instantly understood what she was seeing.

   Best Easter ever.