Note — In light of recent events at my house where my cat, Simon, the star of our children’s book, Finding Home, beheaded a sweet baby bunny and left it out for all to admire, I was reminded of a day years ago when another pet committed a similar but far worse animal crime.

Everyday life brings with it so many story ideas.  The challenge for us writers is to recognize these gifts and bring them to narrative life.  If you’ve got a moment that made for a great story, we’d be happy to share it here.  Enjoy!

Like most people, I’ve had a lot of stressful days — some more panic-invoking than others.

Of course, as you go through life, you realize that the memories of such traumatic events fade with time. I can say that’s true for nearly every experience but one – the day my dog killed the Easter bunny.

It was the Thursday before Easter, 1998. My two boys, Christopher and Dillon, had just come home from school. While I made them a snack, they unloaded their backpacks to begin homework. At that moment, I got a phone call from my next door neighbor.

Looking back now, I should never have answered it.

“Kristy, its Linda.”

“Hey girl, what’s up?” I juggled the phone with one hand, stirring a pan of macaroni and cheese with the other.

“We’ve got a new surprise over here. Kids home? You guys have gotta come see it!”

“A surprise?” Instantly the pair of blonde heads in my kitchen jerked up and two faces eyed me with excitement. So much for homework. I sighed.

“Great,” I offered. “We can’t stay long.” One long look at the boys promised them I wasn’t kidding. “But we’ll hop over in a sec.”

“Hop,” Linda giggled. “What an appropriate word.”

I had barely turned off the stove before both kids stood before me, jackets in hand, ready to launch. We climbed into my pick-up and out of habit, I whistled for Kodi, my two-year-old St. Bernard to jump up in the back.

Five minutes later, we pulled up Linda’s gravel driveway. I could see a gaggle of kids oohing and aahing over something in the garage.

We tumbled out of the car and I told Kodi to lie down and stay. He looked at me with sorrowful brown eyes and laid his great square head on his paws with a sniff.

No sooner had I walked into the garage, when Christopher rushed at me, thrusting a bundle of soft silky fur in my arms. Everyone gathered around, cooing over this incredible lop-eared bunny.

“What’s its name?” squeaked Dillon.

“Her name is Samantha,” Linda answered, clearly thrilled to be the owner of the newest, coolest thing on the block.

“She’s so smooth.  Look at her ears, mom.” Christopher couldn’t keep his hands off of her. He turned to Linda’s son, David. You’ve got your own Easter Bunny!”  He whispered.

“Let’s let everybody else have a turn,” I suggested. Over the kids’ heads, I waggled my eyebrows at my friend Holly. She eyed me back, nodding at my unspoken message: There was no way in hell Holly or I were going to jump onto the bunny bandwagon.

“Isn’t she darling?” Linda asked.

“Yeah, darling.” I answered.

After everyone had gotten in their pets and kisses, Linda replaced Samantha in the bunny cage, a huge wire box about four feet high, with a neat little shelter and lots of clean fresh shavings. Linda invited us in for cookies and punch. I took one look at my watch and the other at the truck. Kodi was passed out, snoring contentedly in the late March afternoon sun.

“Ten minutes, kids. That’s all we have time for.” Christopher and Dillon rolled their eyes at me.

Twenty-six minutes later, I stepped out of the house, keys in hand, ahead of the children and parents putting on jackets and boots. I walked over to take one last look at the new rock star bunny.

Then the most awful thing happened.  I noticed the cage was closed but Samantha was nowhere to be found.

I whirled around and looked in the back of the truck…no dog. Behind me the troops were nearly to the door. I rushed around the corner of the garage and looked in the backyard. There in predatory splendor, my damn dog, was joyously beheading Samantha, looking like a tiger that hadn’t eaten for months.

The kids poured down the steps into the garage, in a beeline for the cage.  “Stop!”  I screamed.

The crowd jammed to a halt, eyes and mouths opened wide, staring at me. “What the, what’s wrong?”  Linda pushed past the kids toward me.

“Kids, inside, NOW.”  I commanded.  They filed back in, casting confused glances in my direction.

Linda looked at the cage, then at me. She then swung her eyes to my empty, dog-less truck. “No way,” she said.  She moved toward the garage entrance.

I put my hand out to stop her. “You don’t want to see this,” I warned.

“Oh shit,” she said.

“Go back inside.” I hissed. “Distract them.  I’ll…” What exactly was I going to do? “Take care of it,” I stuttered.

So, while Linda distributed a second round of cookies, I took what was left of Samantha with my bare hands and sprinted through the one acre pasture stretching below the house, bordered by a huge swamp.

I looked up at the house to make sure none of the kids was looking out the window and gave a huge swing, launching Samantha to her final resting place. I dipped my hands in the swamp’s brackish water to wash off the evidence, and then headed back to the garage.

I don’t remember how we dealt with the trauma of the kids realizing what had happened. I just know that Kodi was persona non-grata in the neighborhood after that.

I became known as the nightmare neighbor with the killer dog. I do recall that I spent the next five hours, driving all over Minneapolis, trying to find Samantha’s exact replica. I bought a $79 replacement bunny that looked close enough, and offered it with multiple apologies.

We were never invited back to Linda’s again. I can’t say I blame her.

It took me a long time to get over the trauma. I would wake up from horrible dreams of kids finding bunny parts all over the yard for months afterward. You see, I never did find Samantha’s head.