Why does Easter look more and more like Christmas every year? I was out looking for those cheep (ha, ha), plastic Easter eggs to fill with pastel colored chocolate candy for my daughter's upcoming Easter egg hunt at school for Thursday. That's when it dawns on me that I am looking at this ever increasing amount of junk available for Easter. How many different ways are there to make a Easter basket from China? It's like a freaking pastel Christmas now!
As I contemplate the holiday further, I'm beginning to think that the Easter Bunny has hired a PR crew to compete with Santa over who is going to have the bigger holiday now. I begin daydreaming of their conversation, and it goes something like this:
As I contemplate the holiday further, I'm beginning to think that the Easter Bunny has hired a PR crew to compete with Santa over who is going to have the bigger holiday now. I begin daydreaming of their conversation, and it goes something like this:
The Scene:
The Easter Bunny has a fat, half-smoked cigar in his mouth as he's yelling a variety of spiced up expletives at some post-college grad over how he should be better promoted at Easter.
Ring, ring....
"Yeah Hurbert, got a few things to run by you that might make me bigger than Santa plus bring a few extra bucks..... Yeah, they already know that I'm cute and fuzzy, but what am I suppose to live on between me, the 11 misses, and 56 rug-bunnies running around eating all the carrots and grub in our hole? Them kids ain't cheap you know!", he growls while puffing smoke rings into the air, with legs crossed on his powdered blue leather executive chair.
"I already know that I'm bigger and cuter than Santa, so why the hell ain't I more popular than the frosty covered, archaic snowcone?", he screams over the phone amid a blanket of smoke covered candy covered chocolate eggs, and dog-eared autographed bunny photos.
The Easter Bunny continues his ego-laden conversation:
"What! You wanna pair me with some cute little yellow chickens again?...... No, no, no - the 80's called and they want those stupid chirpy things back already. I need an image that mirrors today's techno savvy kids. I need my own bunny XBox 360 Live game! Yeah, that's it! Call Bill Gates - tell them we need a Easter Bunny does Resident Evil type video game! I need guns - BIG ONES! Ones that shoot..... CANDY! Yeah, make it a game that shoots stinking candy.... NO, stinking rotten Easter eggs at Santa and his imbecile little moldy-looking elves running around! Yeah, that'll make me more famous, AND target a new market that'll be blurry-eyed from eliminating that overrated fat guy in a tacky red suit!"
As he talks, the Easter Bunny is using a bulls-eye of Santa as target practice with a air-soft gun that shoots partly melted, cinnamon-flavored Red Hots, instead of plastic pellets. The bulls-eye is clean; the wall, the ceiling, and floors are not. Neither is the rather large picture of his fuzzy offspring that sits at the corner of his pine-shaved desk.
"What's that you say?...... We could get sued! Sued by who; freaking Madison Avenue - screw Madison Avenue! Who owns Santa? Nobody does, that's WHO! ....... Uh huh..... Uh huh...... Oh, you think that candidate for Jenny Craig is gonna come out of hibernation to come down here and file a freaking law suit against ME? Well then, bring it on! Does the fat guy know how many times I can kick my hind legs per second?...... No... I didn't think so. I'll bounce that red-nose loving pinhead all the way back to Antarctica, or wherever the hell he comes from!"
"So what's the next issue?" he says while stuffing his pink mouth with stale, sugar coated marshmallow chickens.
"What about the cigar?...... GET RID OF IT! Your full of more goo than a Cadbury's Egg if you think I'm giving up my cigars! They're Cuban; you know much I gotta pay to have Cuban cigars smuggled into my bunny hole?..... I don't care that smoking is faux pas, or whatever fancy-smancy politically correct cliche' you wanna throw on it! Hell, Arnold smokes cigars, and EVERYBODY loves Arnold! I mean, he's The Terminator...... Uh huh..... Uh huh.... They stink you say! So what! Just make sure kids get nose plugs in their baskets this year. Hell, throw in a couple for the parents while you're at it!"
"I got a savvy idea. What about alcohol? How about a beer in every basket this year? Let's get started on a fruit flavored Bunny Beer, PRONTO! I hear kids are drinking at younger ages now anyway..... No?..... Might not be good for a 3 year old to have Bunny Beer along with a chocolate bunny?..... Uh huh.... Parents may protest at Wal-Mart? Well, maybe you're right; Wal-Mart is my biggest supporter and we don't want to piss them off, now do we?..... No, I am not out of touch with reality...... Yes, I did take my meds this morning. I have a nervous disorder..... I'm not crazy you know!...... Uh huh..... I get it - I have an image to uphold, and there might be a boycott of me, and we don't want THAT to happen cause I'm pure and white and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!"
Easter Bunny leans over to his desk and slugs down a gulp of his half cold carrot latte and boisterously proclaims:
"I get it, I'm a family man myself. The missy's and I don't want to give our kids anything that might harm them either, or start a downward spiral towards addiction at five years old. Speaking of which - maybe the family and I should do a promotional tour around the country so that parents can relate to that sense of family thing I got going? What do you mean that might not be such a good idea?...... I can only take one wife; why?..... It might not look too good to be traveling around with 11 wives; why?..... Polygamy? What the hell is that? Well, what's wrong with having that many wives?..... Offend some people; who?..... Just about EVERYONE!...... If we do it, I can only take one wife?..... Well what the hell do I do with the other ten?..... Buy them something?..... Okay, I see where you're coming from. I'll just go out and buy the bunch some blackberries. You moron, they EAT them, not TALK to them!.... Oh, there are telephones called Blackberries? Oh, okay..... never mind."
"Hey, if we can't do the promotional tour thing, can we at least get me one of those naughty and nice lists like Santa has?"
Click!
"Hello..... helloooooo!"
So I grab the last few 12 packs of Easter eggs that are on sale at CVS, a few special cookies for the kids lunches on Thursday, some special goodies for the kids to hunt for on Sunday, and head to the checkout line with a little grin on my face. I may be different from other parents, but I'm not going to be joining the "Easter Bunny" this year by competing with Santa. I haven't quite joined the lines of other parents vying for the latest over-stuffed Easter baskets lining the walls of Wal-Mart each year, and I don't think I ever will.
I believe in simplifying:
- hunting a few eggs,
- some chocolate,
- a day in the park with family,
- and a big fat dinner, followed by a nap to top it off.
After all, that's what the lagging economy is teaching us this year: less is more.
Take that and stuff in your "basket" Mr. Easter Bunny Man!
