Shake A Friend’s Hand
If you are on my “prayer group” email list you already know about the “rabbit police” and that because of some new laws, my rabbit, Shampoo has been forced into early retirement. The US Government has placed restrictions and requirements on the use of animals to the point that it cost too much to meet the requirements. There are requirements to their living conditions, how much “time off” they get, how many times per year they have to see a Dr., etc. It seems like rabbits (all animals) have more rights than unborn babies. They have more protection from the government than kids or adults for that matter. However, if you want to eat your rabbit, that is OK.
My dear friend Rick Lenski gets my messages and sent me this little cartoon that he quickly put together. I think you will enjoy it.
If you are not on the prayer group list, you can be by adding your name here.
Now for today’s story.
Every magician needs a rabbit and I have mine. In fact, you can see him right here on our site. But what do I do when I travel? Well, if I’m driving, my rabbit goes with me. But if I need to fly, that is a different story. Thus was the case in this story.
Vicky and I were to be in California for meetings. At that time it cost $100 to put the rabbit on the plane each way. So for a total of $200 I can buy a rabbit when I get there and save some money. I always look up a pet store close to where I will be and call them a couple of weeks before I get there. I tell them the make and model of rabbit ‘m looking for and ask them to have one ready for me when I get there. I have also learned that I need to call a day or two before I leave to make sure they have one.
When I got to California I rented a car and headed for the pet store that was to have my rabbit. Sure enough, they had one that would work just fine. I bought the rabbit and took off. Keep in mind that this rabbit is not used to being in a magic show. However, it doesn’t take a rabbit long to figure out what their job is and they do a great job.
All of the “experts” say to take a rabbit’s food and water away from them about 4 hours before you want to use them so that the rabbit doesn’t do a job different than a magic trick if you know what I mean. I had taken his food and water away in plenty of time but I guess this rabbit couldn’t tell time. He did the trick just fine but as I held him in my hands nice and close to my chest facing the audience I felt my hands get warm and wet. Then my chest felt warm and wet. I was afraid to look down and was in hopes that the audience couldn’t see what was going on.
I like to save the rabbit for the very last trick. Then I close in prayer. From there it is off to the back of the church to shake hands with everyone and let them pet the rabbit. It’s kind of hard to think about what you are praying holding a soggy rabbit. I didn’t think people would appreciate shaking my wet hands either. Oh, and who wants to pet a wet rabbit? By the time I finished praying and looked down I could see a puddle on the floor. Oops.
“Who may ascend the hill of the LORD Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Psalms 24:3-4
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
The culmination of my extremely short career using doves came at the climax of my Noah’s Ark routine. “And so, Noah sent out a dove…” And out comes the dove, tail raised and leaving a lovely stream o’ pooh all over the box. Kids in the front row holler, “it poohed on the ark!!” Cal resists temptation to launch dove at ceiling fan and keeps going. 😀
And that’s when I started performing sans animals…
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Hi Cal,
Anytime you use an animal you open yourself up to all kinds of things. I have always said, “If you haven’t had a trick go South, you haven’t done very much magic”.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Such is the life of children entertainers. The thing to do is adlib, adlib, adlib. Find a way to get a laugh out of a “messy” situation. I’ve loaded the dove pan backwards and after all of the fun that leads up to the blow off I had to “blow off” the routine. I’d still like to know more about this “Rabbit Police”.