April's Life Adventures

Monday, September 19, 2005

The Intrepid Easter Bunny

The post of Resident Assistant will be one that I will forever equate with making a fool of one self. This is one more experience, although it thankfully didn't have anything to do with me. When my husband was new to the position, he was asked at a staff meeting if he would consider playing the part of the Easter Bunny at the annual Easter egg hunt. Being ever ready to put on a costume, he happily accepted the task. At the time, no one else wanted the position, so he had no competition.

A few days before the hunt, my husband rode around in the housing golf cart with a blow horn inviting all the kids out to the Easter egg hunt. Everyone was excited and we all arrived at the hill early to set up the candy. The people in charge were smart enough to segregate the hunt by ages. There were roped off areas for where the kids would all start within the relative age groups posted. However, they made one very costly mistake, the roped off portions only lasted for about 100 yards or so, and thus, when the kids reached the end of these partitions, the rest of the field was fair game.

Hundreds of children showed up to the hunt. My husband was having a great time posing for pictures with all the excited youngsters. The starting whistle was blown and the hunt began. The older children were fast! They quickly reached the end of their roped off portions and ran unchecked into the younger areas of the field. They each walked away with baskets overflowing with candy and brightly colored eggs.

After about 4 minutes (the time it took for the kids to empty the field), children began approaching the Easter bunny. Younger children with tear filled eyes drew close to the all powerful giant rabbit. "Easter Bunny, I didn't get any candy!" They were not fast enough to overpower the older and more experienced kids. My husband could not ask the older kids to give up some of their candy, as they had all vanished as quickly as they appeared. A great sad feeling of helplessness settled over the field. What was supposed to be a fun filled morning of candy gorging turned instead into a tear filled group of children begging the Easter bunny to solve their unfair experience.

Was there a moral to this sad tale? Perhaps. At least, my husband refused to play the Easter bunny the following year (the housing director had to play the part because all of the RA's refused). We also demanded that each RA in attendance have a bag of candy held in reserve. The second year, each child left happy. Although, there were only about 2/3 of the kids there. Most of them were older children. Go figure. If I were a young little kid, I wouldn't have wanted to come again either. My husband on the other hand has refused any kind of dress up entertaining. He has turned down posts of Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, and others. I hope that someday he can get over his fear of those upturned, tear stained faces. But I am afraid that his big heart will forever break with that memory.

Posted by April_Mommy :: 8:25 AM :: 4 comments