Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 13:51:32 CST
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         MICHELLE HALL <GR4522@SIUCVMB.BITNET>
Subject:      A Bunny Story

I received a story recently that I thought some of you might enjoy.

Michelle Hall
Southern Illinois University


                     (From the Aesops HUMORnet...)

        A BUNNY RABBIT TALE WITH A MORAL (AND A GOOD ONE, TOO)

    There once was a fluffy little bunny rabbit with long floppy
ears, two button eyes, and a tiny pink nose with just the
smallest speck of ink on its very tip.  "A very cute picture of
a bunny rabbit," you might say.  If you did, you would be quite
right, because I am rather good at descriptive writing.

    It was a warm summer evening with a gentle breeze blowing
across the meadow, and the bunny rabbit was sitting outside her
burrow on a flat white stone, furiously writing in a large
notebook and, every now and then, gazing off into space,
thinking.  A shifty-eyed fox with a furtive step and a bandit
mask came along the road and spied her sitting there.  Just for
a moment, he thought of pouncing then and there and eating her
immediately.  But foxes are notoriously curious, and he
considered that if he ate her without more ado, he would never
find out what she was doing and what it was that she found so
absorbing to write about.  And so, he slinked closer and
greeted her.

Fox:    "Good evening, Ms. Bunny Rabbit."

Bunny:  (wrinkling her nose and writing even faster)  "Hmm...."

Fox:    "Excuse me."

Bunny:  (Finally looking up and seeing the fox)  "Hmm?"

Fox:    "What are you doing?"

Bunny:  (Putting down her pen)  "I'm writing my Ph.D.
        dissertation."

Fox:    "How very interesting, my dear!  I would have written a
        dissertation, you know, but ..." (lowering his voice to
        a confidential level and looking in all directions
        before resuming speaking)... "they were all against me.
        I would never have had a chance.  I was smarter than
        them all and they hated me for it....  I would have
        written a revisionist dissertation about something or
        other...."  (More briskly)  "And just what is your
        dissertation about?"

Bunny:  "It's called How to Eat Foxes and Wolves:  Theoretical
        Bases and  Practical Principles."

Fox:    (Bursting out with laughter)  "Ho, ho, ho!  That's so
        typical of you establishment intellectuals!  You're
        always talking and writing about things that you don't
        know the first thing about.  What can a fluffy little
        bunny rabbit with long floppy ears, little button eyes,
        and a tiny pink nose possibly tell anyone about eating
        clever foxes and ferocious wolves?"

Bunny:  "Well, if you would care to follow me into my burrow,
        I'd be happy to show you the primary source upon which
        I've based most of my work."

    The fox agreed, and followed her down into a maze of
tunnels.  You and I might be hesitant to follow anyone down
into a maze of tunnels, but the fox was not afraid, since his
own home was not much different, except for being (he noted
with considerable pride and a certain unfox-like complacency)
considerably larger and tastefully decorated with small piles
of the well-gnawed bones of various small animals.

    If you and I were to have watched them descend, we would
have had to wait for only a few minutes before hearing the
terrible sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bones issuing
forth from within the burrow.  A few minutes later, we would
have seen the bunny rabbit emerge, licking her lips and with
only the smallest speck of red fox blood on the very tip of her
tiny pink nose.

    She picked up her pen, gazed off into space for a moment
while she considered how to integrate this most recent body of
information into her main discussion, and then resumed writing.
As she wrote and thought, and thought and wrote, darkness began
to fall.  Just then, a rather large and ferocious, lop-eared
wolf came shambling down the road and saw her sitting there,
writing.  He came up and spoke.

Wolf:   "Excuse me, little bunny rabbit."

Bunny:  "Hmm?"

Wolf:   "What are you busy writing about on such a fine summer
        evening?"

Bunny:  (Putting down her pen)  "I'm writing my Ph.D.
        dissertation."

Wolf:   "Really.  I have a cousin who wrote a dissertation once.
        He's pulling a sled in Alaska.  Only job the sucker
        could get.  Too clever by  half!  Myself, I never wrote
        no dissertation.  I went to the school  of hard knocks,
        but I got me a good job maintaining the ecological
        balance of fauna in this section of the forest.  But I
        guess writing  dissertations never did little bunny
        rabbits any harm, 'cause they're  not much good for
        anything in the first place.  What's this here
        dissertation of yours about, anyhow?"

Bunny:  "It's called How to Eat Foxes and Wolves:  Theoretical
        Bases and Practical Principles."

Wolf:   (So surprised that he bites down and almost severs his
        tongue, which  has been hanging down almost to the
        ground as he looked at the bunny  rabbit and drooled)
        "Umpf!  Yack!  Cough, cough, cough!  Just what  gives
        you the gall to go around writing about how to eat
        wolves?  I've  eaten more bunny rabbits in my time than
        you've munched lettuce, but I  ain't never seen no bunny
        rabbit so much as nip one of us wolves, much  less eat
        us!  Unless you're just doing creative writing, then
        you've  got the dumbest topic in the world, 'cause ain't
        no bunny rabbits what  gonna eat any strong, valiant
        wolves, ever!"

Bunny:  "I've done a good deal of research on the subject.  If
        you would care to come down into my burrow, I would be
        happy to show it to you."

    The wolf agreed, figuring that he could devour her in her
burrow as well as anywhere else, and he followed her down into
the maze.  If you and I were to wait there, outside the burrow
entrance, for a while, we would soon hear those terrible sounds
once again, and then there would be silence.  We would finally
see the bunny rabbit come out of the burrow with a glass of
port in her little paw, go over and sit on her flat white rock,
and watch contentedly as the moon began to rise over the meadow
and the bats took wing.

    Perhaps we too would be overcome with curiosity.  If we
were, we could go down those winding and branching tunnels
ourselves, stumbling in the dark and getting lost half a
hundred times, until we came to a place where one of those
narrow passages entered a great den.  We would look inside
briefly, and then tiptoe very quietly back into the bunny
rabbit burrow, fearful of waking the great snoring lion who
lived there.

               AT LAST WE REACH THE MORAL OF THIS TALE:

             Don't ask, "What is your dissertation about?"

                  Ask instead, "Who is your advisor?"
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