True story. My brother-in-law lives next door to Jim who lives next door to Bob. Both Jim and Bob have families, too. Last Spring, Jim got a Golden Retriever puppy; you know how curious and non-stop puppies are. Bob was kind of a butt and had been complaining to Jim about the wandering and digging being done by Jim's Golden Retriever. A couple of months later Bob got his daughter a rabbit. He built a rickety wire structure in the backyard to house the rabbit outdoors. One evening Jim comes home late from work and sees his Golden tossing something around in the front yard. On closer inspection, he realizes to his horror that it is the rabbit from next door. While clearly dead, the rabbit is not openly wounded or bloody. Thinking quickly, Jim carries the rabbit insides and washes the dirt and saliva from the rabbit's coat and dries it as best he can. He then tiptoes over under the cover of night to Bob's yard and places the rabbit's body back inside the cage-- hoping he's gotten away with the chicanery. Next morning Jim sees Bob and his daughter standing over the rabbit's hutch with heads hanging and shaking confusedly. He wanders over, spies the dead rabbit, acts surprised and expresses his sorrow over the obviously dead rabbit. "What happened? I'm so sorry, etc. , etc." Bob speaks up: "The confusing part is that the rabbit died two days ago and I had buried it in the backyard. We're just trying to figure out how it got back into it's pen...."
I remember hearing Michael Landon telling that exact story on The Tonight Show once (before he died, of course).
It does sound like one of those urban legend kind of things but my brother-in-law swears it's true because he is sworn to secrecy never to tell Bob the truth. Maybe Life imitates Art.
I've heard that joke repeated a number of times, including the Michael Landen reference. It's just a joke....
Okay. By the way, after looking it up at snopes.com, I notice that the story has been repeated several times on The Tonight Show. Once by Johnny himself, one by Landon and once by Marc Anthony (just last year) as having happened to his father-in-law. William Shatner told the story on Conan O'Brien as having happened to his co-author just a month after Anthony did. And apparently, the story has shown up on a Jeff Foxworthy comedy album. I admit that doesn't preclude it from actually having happened to the person you mentioned, it would just be an amazing coincidence.
Uncle. It must be a joke. Maybe I missed the set-up or something but I understood the telling to be a true story. We Republicans are so naive, right Achebe? And thanks to you Mr. Paige for your empathy. How many eggs nogs had I had at that particular point in time?
