Another stupid story
March 3, 2006
Berkeley, California
This week we made real progress in the war against hunting. It all started with my offhand remark to some Bambi-killing Neanderthal that I'd consider hunting to be a sport when the prey is also armed. Scooter overheard this and paid a visit to a friend who designs human prosthetics and had him adapt a brain-triggered mechanism that could be linked with a firearm, and voila, the Hunter-B-Gon(TM) was born! Just like the prosthetic hand that grips when signaled by the brain, this trigger mechanism is activated by a small probe in the part of the animal's brain that senses fear. Cool.
I went to the neighborhood pet store and purchased the largest rabbit they had. I named him "Fluffy." Scooter immediately started Fluffy on an intense training program by dressing as a hunter and scaring the crap out of him repeatedly. Once Fluffy was conditioned, our vet friend inserted the little probe into his brain and wired it to the featherweight Kel-Tec P3AT automatic pistol we had taped to his body. It worked perfectly, as every time hunter Scooter jumped at Fluffy, we would hear the "clicking" of the trigger mechanism. Die, hunter! We were ready to release Fluffy into a popular hunting spot outside of town.
In a spirit of fairness, we posted signs in the area that said, "Caution hunters! Animals in this area are armed, and if threatened, will shoot!" We figured this would turn back all but the stupid ones, and they probably deserved to get shot by an animal. Scooter double-checked the apparatus, brushed and fed Fluffy, then loaded the magazine into the gun.
Fluffy took two hops, turned, and shot Scooter in the knee! Oh crap! Apparently scared by the sound of gunfire, Fluffy then shot me in the ankle, shot our car, shot the sign, then shot Scooter (the genius) again, in the crotch. At this point I started clubbing Fluffy with a tree branch as the homicidal bunny fired off another shot which thankfully missed me, but hit Scooter once again, this time in the elbow. Damn, that bunny really had it in for Scooter! Finally I killed Fluffy, but not before he looked up at me with a twisted little grin accompanied by one last "click" of the trigger - thank God the gun was empty.
While Scooter's idea of arming innocent animals was brilliant, his assumption that they possess any kind of reasoning skills was not. As for Fluffy, well, he almost killed us both, and frankly I enjoyed clubbing the snot out of him. One unfortunate result of this whole episode is that Scooter has applied for a hunting license and I fear for rabbits everywhere. On the positive side, Fluffy probably did the world a favor by shooting off Scooter's testicles - knowing he can't reproduce gives me a certain amount of peace.