I am fully aware that, to the uninitiated, this stuffed rabbit might appear to be just a cute, cuddly little kiddie toy that elicits sweet smiles and choruses of elongated "Oohs" and "Aahs." In reality, however, it is a cruel instrument of torture and frustration. You shrink in disbelief? Allow me to explain.
A Christmas ago, Bootsie received the gift of a make-it-yourself kit purporting to contain all instructions and supplies needed for an "8+" child to sew her own furry companion. Right there, in bold black letters, the box proclaims itself to be "FULL OF FUN!" Lying in ambush inside, indeed, were thread, fabric, stuffing, manual--items necessary to save the manufacturer from a class action false advertising lawsuit. Certainly nothing to raise your eyebrows at--yet.
My suspicion was first aroused by the disclaimer that "Scissors and Sewing Needle [are] NOT Included" (in a kit that presents itself as "complete"?) But even the most disciplined eyebrows rise with the opening of the instruction manual, a segment of which I offer as Exhibit A.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that these instructions prove quite difficult if not downright impossible for a child of eight to understand, much less execute. (Bootsie was six at the time, but that is beside the point.) "Sew all the parts of the head on the reverse side of the fabric using the overstitch." Yeah, sure.
Or better yet, "To finish the head, sew the side pieces together from the nose tip to the neck opening on the reverse side of the fabric of both pieces." Say what? Even I, with three years of home economics on my high school transcript, had to think entirely too hard about what these words and diagrams mean.
Let me pause here to testify that the enclosed thread came in a tangled wad, the cut fabric pieces were hard to differentiate among, and the fabric itself frayed easily. Consider the fact that the finished bunny was only nine inches tall, and maybe you can imagine the intricate nature of the handwork required and the utter inappropriateness of this for a child seamstress.
My daughter Cookie is smart. She took one look at the contents of the bunny box (After all, it said, "Come on, OPEN ME!") and claimed it gave her a headache just thinking about it. I get that. She has her hands full with four children, a household, and a truckload of music students. But Bootsie wanted her bunny made, and, well, how could I resist those big blue eyes and that plaintive little voice. "Googie?" she said. "Would you sew my bunny for me?"
And this is where I summarize--where I squeeze into a few poignant words the entire year it took to make myself sew up this awful thing. Beginning on a recent mid-afternoon while Pa-pa was out of town, I stitched, cursed, ripped out, and repeated that process more times than even I, in retrospect, can imagine.
I found a pair of buttons to use for eyes in place of the worthless rivets that refused to pierce the face piece. The red thread for the nose refused to pull through, so those extraneous loops became whiskers (four on one side and eight on the other, but who's counting?). The enclosed ribbon for the bunny's neck wasn't long enough to tie in a bow, so I had to scrounge up another one.
Determined to finish the project for our next visit to the kids, I stitched and stuffed relentlessly through everything late night TV had to offer, including two episodes each of Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock. Even Hitchcock's horror couldn't equal mine, until finally, around 2 a.m., this motley collection adorned the arm of my recliner.
A little over an hour later, the dots were connected and "Frankenbunny," my own little creation of mismatched, improvised rabbit parts, was born. It was about a twelve-hour job altogether. Right then, I was sure I would never take on another such project, even for a grandkid.
But then, in her Frankenstein, Mary Shelley writes, ". . . if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness." Bootsie was thrilled when she first laid those big blue eyes on Frankenbunny, and Shelley got it right.
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