Someone Called The Cops On Me!

I returned from dance practice yesterday evening to find my husband getting back from the gym. He told me that the cat had brought in a baby bunny. Before she could harm the baby, Frank separated her from it and left it on the porch, hoping it would hop back home. I went straight to the porch and found there a tiny baby bunny. It was about 2.5 inches long and weighed a couple of ounces. It was sitting right where Frank had left it a couple of hours ago (the cat was locked indoors).

I knew this little thing would not survive without feeding from its mother. So I picked up the wee thing and decided to walk around my community of town homes and see if I couldn't find it a safe bunny hole. I did try to set it down from time to time near where I saw some adult bunnies grazing but no luck. I continued my quest for a secure location with some chance of it finding a bunny mommy. What with coyotes and other predators (like my cat) little bunnies are not safe in the prairies.

A little while later I saw a cop car. The young cop pulled up near me and said, "Ma'am, someone called us to report you." Puzzled, I said, "Yes?" He continued, "A lady called us to report someone in yellow walking the lawns." I said, "And?" He just looked sheepish and embarrassed so I said, "Is it a crime to walk the lawns now?" He laughed and said, "No, I'm sorry." I showed him the bunny and told him that I was looking for a home for it. He said, "Good luck with that ma'am. I'm sorry about this but we have to respond to calls." By this point, I was starting to feel upset and hurt that someone would report me and that a cop would actually come up and talk to me. He was a nice person who tried to be as kind as he could be, but to be approached by the police is still unnerving. I said to him as he was beginning to pull away, "If that lady calls again, would you please tell her that what she did was not right." He said, "Yes ma'am, I shall be calling her back."

I tried to find a bunny hole as quickly as I could since I had begun to shake and feel upset and tearful. See the thing is, I attend Bharatnatyam dance lessons and I was dressed in a bright yellow salwar kameez for it.* I had not even realized that I might have looked different to anyone else as I had passed a few of my neighbors- some familiar and others new- and exchanged pleasantries with everyone on my bunny sojourn. Everyone had been kind and nice. I remember passing under one window where a lady was talking loudly on the phone and I heard the word yellow but I thought it a coincidence and moved away so as not to intrude on her conversation. I hadn't realized that she felt threatened by seeing me walking outside in a yellow outfit.

The time since last evening has given me a little bit of perspective. Talking to some dear friends as well as my husband has helped a little. This is happening in the same time frame as Dunkin Donuts pulling the ad with Rachael Ray wearing a b&w scarf because a right-wing hate-monger says Ray's scarf is somehow glamorizing and condoning middle-eastern terrorism. Puh-leeze!

Yesterday, I would have wanted to say that my brush with the police indicates racism or xenophobia here in America. But now I think that what we have here is plain old intolerance of yellow. Hard-core, foaming-at-the-mouth, the hidden underbelly of a seamy reality- the hatred of yellow. It is not ok to come right out and say you hate this bright and sunny color. But at the same time, when you see it, it makes you angry and you wonder at the inconsideration of the person who walks about happily rubbing your face in all this yellow-ness. I was going to add a picture here with me in the offending outfit but thought better of it. Instead, I have added a jazzier and jeweled version of the salwar kameez I wore yesterday, in seafoam and lavender. If this offends anyone, please write me and I will send you Parker Police's phone number. They should be getting used to receiving calls about the colors I wear and walk about.

[* Bharatnatyam is a form of classical Indian dancing and it is ancient. Kinda like yoga- in fact a lot of mudras are shared and of course, the language of both is Sanskrit. In fact, in India, female yoga practitioner's often wear the outfit I had worn for my dancing.
The bunny pictured is not the exact same one written about here. This one is another victim of my cat's translocation program. The bunny mentioned in this article was safely relocated to a bunny colony near my home.]