For six days of each week a certain polar bear and a certain bunny rabbit dream such dreams as stuffed polar bears and stuffed bunny rabbits are wont to dream. They dream their stuffed dreams from the odd lodging of a fine old maple rocking chair, where they were placed just so by a person who insists on doing things just so. Side by side they sit, more blissful than any flesh polar bear and bunny could ever be, sitting side-by-side.

If you could hover nearby and be very, very still, you just might be able to hear the faintest swinging strains of that old 1920’s favorite by Harry Woods and Gus Kahn.

For six days it goes like this. On the seventh day, all is different. The seventh day is Tuesday, the day for conversation.

"You first," said the bunny rabbit. "Bear comes before bunny."

"So it does," said the polar bear. "But I am a polar bear and proud of it. And polar bear comes after bunny.”

"All well and good," replied the bunny rabbit. "But bunny is just another word for rabbit and I am a rabbit every bit as much as I am a bunny. And rabbit comes after polar bear." The bunny rabbit neglected to mention such synonyms as hare and coney, which would have seriously compromised his line of argument.

"What sort of half-baked logic is that?" grumbled the bear, who grew up alongside no-nonsense Arctic pipe-welders and was perhaps not as well-versed in his synonyms as he might have been. "You can’t be two things at once. It's against all the rules. And, it's not logical. Hang on just a minute and I'll prove why you still have to go first."

As the bunny rabbit looked on, the polar bear used his tiny claws to make a series of tiny scratches in the arm of the rocking chair. To this day, the owner of the chair is mystified by those scratches, sixteen in all. Next, the polar bear counted on his claws, silently mouthing letters of the alphabet. He did it three times, just to be on the safe side. The bunny rabbit kept silent.

Finally, the polar bear spoke. "According to all logic, at the very most you could be half bunny and half rabbit. So if we find the midpoint between 'B' and 'P', you're something with four legs, long ears and whiskers that now begins with the letter 'I'. Since 'I' is before 'P', you go first."

If the polar bear could have looked smug, surely he would have. To his way of thinking he most certainly had finally won a round against his nimble-witted chairmate. Yeah, he wasn't absolutely sure about the math, but if presidents don't need to be sure of their math, why should a polar bear?

The bunny rabbit tried very hard to look bored and blasé while his sawdust brain stirred itself in search of a winning counter-argument. Finally he spoke. "For a polar bear you have a remarkable facility with pseudo-logical legalisms. However, you seem to have forgotten to calculate the Unfairness Penalty," declaimed the bunny rabbit.

"This is not the wild, you know, where polar bears can do as they damn well please, rending innocent, helpless small creatures with bloody tooth and claw and all that hideous barbaric crap. And why are wild polar bears accorded these vicious freedoms? Just because polar bears are born the biggest, meanest savages on ice. The luck of the draw: period. But this chair we share is not the wild. Our mutual chair is a civilized chair in a civilized house owned by civilized owners. Thus, by the overwhelming dictates of civility, you and I are required to act civilized in this chair. You don’t want to go back in a box, do you?"

The polar bear ignored the business of the box, although it was no secret that he definitely preferred the chair to the box; no one interrupted your dreams except on Tuesday. He also ignored the whole subject of the Unfairness Penalty. What he said was, "I don’t see anything about acting civilized in my chair-sitting contract."

"It's in the fine print, where else?" instructed the bunny rabbit lawyer.
"My old eyes can’t read fine print any more,” protested the bear, knowing the the case was lost. Again.

"Ignorance of the fine print is no excuse; that, my friend is Natural Law. Being creatures of Nature, we are bound to abide by Natural Law. Now, if you please, tell me again of your first moments in the box. I never tire of hearing that fine story."

Mollified by this unexpected compliment, the polar bear's resistance caved in. "Natural law, you say? Well if it’s natural I suppose I must. If there's one thing you and I agree on, it's that polar bears are nothing if not natural."

A Transcript of the Polar Bear’s First Moments in the Box

"Welcome," said the polar bear's box.

"Who speaks?" inquired the polar bear in his usual commanding growl.

"It is I, your box, of course," replied the box matter-of-factly, as though talking boxes were the most ordinary things in the universe.

"I wasn’t aware I had a box," said the polar bear.

"Everybody, everything has a box," said the box. Even we boxes have boxes.

"That sounds suspiciously like philosophy," rumbled the polar bear. "We polar bears don’t have much inclination toward philosophy. We polar bears prefer fish and seals and playing linebacker. We polar bears prefer the hard-hitting, the tangible and the tasty."

"In other words, two out of three times, the shortest way to a polar bear's mind is through its stomach?" inquired the box, dry cardboard tongue firmly planted in dry cardboard cheek.

"Are you mocking me, Box?”" snarled the polar bear. "Call me a simple polar bear, but I thought your job as a box was simply to enclose me."

"Just between you and me, Polar Bear, enclosing can be a pretty boring box to be in," drawled the box. "Mocking adds a little spice. And mocking seems to come as naturally to we boxes as light removal. You wouldn't want me to act unnaturally, would you?"

"Well," grumbled the polar bear, "if it's natural, then it must be okay. We polar bears are as natural as Arctic pipe-welders, lumberjacks and whores with red lipstick."

"Naturally," said the box. "By the way, Polar Bear, we've got an unknown amount of time to kill, you and me, before your sentence is up. So if you have any questions, go ahead and ask. We boxes naturally love questions very nearly as much as long sentences. Take your time."

"Since I currently find myself in the dark," said the polar bear, "why don't you tell me where you are."

"You're in the dark all right, Polar Bear. But the true, complete and utter answer to your question is everywhere," proclaimed the box with that peculiar flair of a Victorian Taoist. "I am all around you. I am the ice you would walk, I am the fish you would eat, I am the opposing quarterback you would deck, I am the horizon that speaks out distance to your eyes, I am…"

"Hold it just a darn minute,” said the polar bear, who to his vast disappointment had been manufactured with only a G-rated vocabulary. "You go and wax poetic about eyeball things, but I see nothing but darkness from you. Box, I hereby expose you as a poetic fraud, a flinger of bulimic bullshit and florid fluffery."

The box replied with that dry humor characteristic of boxes the world over. "And now who is waxing his alliterative eloquence with a silken cloth? Polar Bear, you are not so dumb as you might look…if I could actually see you. I’ll bet you went to college."

"Two years of community college on a football scholarship," intoned the polar bear with well-burnished pride. "Not only did I learn the highly natural trade of pipe-welding, I got to read Chaucer, Rabelais and Cervantes, which is where I honed my nose for bullshit. And I got to grind quarterbacks into dust, which is where I honed my nose for The American Way."

"All is explained. Too bad you missed out on Camus and tennis, but no matter. You don't strike me as the Camus and tennis type. Let's have an imaginary beer, some imaginary ice chips and salsa, and do some swilling and time-killing together."

"Too dark to kill anything else in this crummy box," grumbled the polar bear half under his breath. Then more brightly, "You buying?"

"We'll let Camus buy this round."

---------

"Bravo, bravo, bra-vo!" gushed the bunny rabbit. "Most illuminating!"
"Your turn," blushed the polar bear, wishing he had one of those imaginary beers right now.

A Transcript of the Bunny Rabbit's First Moments in the Box

"Welcome," said the bunny rabbit's box.

"Welcome, schmelcome! My new landlord turns out the lights without thirty days notice, and all it can say is ‘welcome’?” An echo from an old law professor rang in his stuffed ears: A good offense is the best offense. Or was the first offense supposed to be defense?

“Well, well, well,” chuckled the bunny rabbit’s box. “Isn’t that a shrill way to begin a relationship with one’s box.”

“Box? I thought you were the landlord,” quipped the bunny rabbit.

The quick-witted box responded thusly: “If I was your landlord, don’t you think I’d have my hand out looking for the rent?”

“Point well taken,” admitted the bunny rabbit. “To be perfectly candid, I don’t much know from rent; our warren outside of Philly has been in the family for centuries. But just for the sake of conversation, what’s the difference between a box and a landlord?”

The box thought a moment. "Had I a whimsical side, I might say that the difference between a box and a landlord is that a box has a heart."

The box paused for a chuckle, didn't get one and proceeded. "The sad reality is this; by law, we boxes aren’t allowed to collect rent for the shelter we provide." The box tried to project a tone of bemused injury. "So in an economic sense, we are poorer than our heartless landlord cousins who are paid handsomely for providing shelter. But spiritually…"

The bunny rabbit was not about to be distracted by some spiritual hocus-pocus. He went right for the box’s jugular. "Shelter, you say? You call this moth-eaten, stultifying darkness shelter? Shelter is shelter, darkness is darkness: no more, no less. Consider this; for all I know, I might be asleep right now and you and your exalted boxedness might just be wafts of figment in an absurd dream I created to entertain my soul during slumber. In which case, the overhyped darkness is mine, not yours, by the way. Who owns the shelter now? Maybe I should be charging you rent!"

"My, my, my! You're certainly clever with your red herrings, Bunny Rabbit! But no need to get your handsome polyester fur all ruffled over trifling terms like shelter and darkness," purred the box. "I surmise that you are a Type A alpha male. Some Type A alpha males I've known have found my darkness far more exquisite than oppressive. And most definitely sheltering."

"Hmmm…indeed," mused the bunny rabbit, recalling an old Rolling Stones song. "That certainly puts shelter and darkness in a different light!"

"Touché," said the box in her sultriest of tones. "I wonder what else you might have a way with [long pause] in addition to words…"

"I propose we discuss the matter over a bottle of imaginary Bordeaux of the most perfect vintage imaginable," declaimed the bunny rabbit, now the very essence of suavity. "Certain proclivities of my race, after all, are of legendary proportion."

"So I've heard, so I've heard," murmured the box. "In the interest of modern mutuality, why don’t I provide the imaginary candlelight? Now if you’ll allow me a moment to slip into something more comfortable…"
Presently, the box returned wearing her sleekest gown of the blackest silk.

"May I propose a toast" proposed the bunny rabbit.

"You may indeed," replied the box.

"To the sweet darkness of time and a time of sweet darkness.”

Clink went the glasses.

---------

The polar bear clapped his padded palms together in a muffled parody of applause. "You certainly have a way with words, my long-eared chairmate. But if you'’ll forgive me for possibly being too up-front and personal, I'd still like an answer to my usual question. Did you and your box…? Uh, you know…"

"Shhhhsh," hissed the bunny rabbit. "I hear them coming. Let's pick this up next Tuesday."

There was silence again in the chair.

---------

The following Sunday, someone upset the schedule. That someone ever-so-carefully placed a monkey wrench on the chair between the polar bear and the bunny rabbit. The monkey wrench was named Barbie.

The polar bear continued to dream his dreams, undisturbed by the monkey wrench. The bunny rabbit, whose sleep was as light as his step, noticed his dream being interrupted by a new sensation: cool flesh-pink plastic against his one hundred percent natural polyester fur. Odd. A soft paw reached out to investigate.

"Oooh. Keep your furry little paws to yourself, Mr. Bunny Rabbit! Barbies of my era don't allow that on the first date. My Kens would never do such a thing."

"Is is Tuesday already," mumbled the bunny rabbit. "And who did you say you are?"

"How should I know what day it is? I'm Barbie," hissed Barbie.

"Ahhh, a famous Barbie," effused the bunny rabbit, now fully awake. Sharp as a cow pie and somewhat worse for wear, too, observed the bunny rabbit to himself. "Just so you know how it goes on this chair, we only talk on Tuesdays. "Talk now and you'll wake the linebacker. He needs his hibernation. And you really don't want to wake the linebacker unless you like the rough and tumble sort of stuff," lied the bunny rabbit out of enlightened self-interest. "And about the date business, this is hardly a date anyway. This more like a fur and plastic sandwich than a date."

"Oooh, that sounds like Really Nasty!" squealed Barbie. "One of my sisters was into kinky stuff like that." [giddy titter] "She wanted to be a centerfold, but Penthouse rejected her, which was like really cru-el. I mean, it's not her fault Mattel didn't give us nipples or the other part, you know? No, wait…I think it was Playboy that rejected her. Aren't they the ones with the bunny mascot?"

The bunny rabbit changed the subject. "So how’d you lose the leg?" he inquired in terse, wooden tones, shorn of his usual sly fluff.

We need a little aside here. Dollologists will tell you there’s not a savvy doll alive who hasn't rued his or her lack of properly articulated genitalia. A lucky clueless few never learn about genitalia at all. Betsy Wetsy, for example, simply lives to pee. As long as she can pee and avoid diaper rash, she's a happy little hunk of rubber. It's not so easy for natural sex symbols like bunny rabbits and Barbies. For them the pain of being so prudishly malconstructed can escalate into a soul-swallowing existential angst. That's why the bunny changed the subject: existential angst.

To the bunny rabbit's surprise, Barbie somehow left all her hardwired giddy affectations tucked behind her lips. “Gulf War. I was in Iraq doing a show for the troops called All-American Doll. Then...."

"Don’t want to talk about it?"

"Too painful. Phantom Toenail Syndrome."

Silence. A gooey quandary temporarily glued the bunny rabbit’s thin little bunny-lips together. Had the ghost of Bob Hope mysteriously crept into his new chairmate? Or was Barbie really just being blonde? Quandaries like this made his sawdust sweat and his pink button eyes glaze over.

A heavy-lidded silence ensued. Accustomed to conversing only on Tuesdays, the bunny rabbit felt as though a large box of yawns had just spun down from the sky and landed in the middle of their conversation. Fragile yawns. At least a two-day supply. It was a very difficult silence for the bunny to shrug off. His eventual response was hardly scintillating.

"So, uh, Barbie. You’ve been in a box, right?"

Barbie’s voice was now all squeaky, bright-eyed innocence. "Oh, sure. It had a real cellophane window and super colorful graphics. And of course our Barbie logo. We’re a world-famous brand, you know. Are you a brand, bunny rabbit?"

The bunny’s ego felt as though it had just put its hand on a fry-plate. Ouch, went his ego: the brand thing again. Completely, utterly unfair that by some accident of manufacture, brands get to have all the fun. There she sits -- chipped, naked, sexless, one-legged, advertised-on-TV, and blonde -- and she can still push my buttons. Was there a way to get out of this with any face at all? What would any good lawyer do under the circumstances?

"Well, Barbie, the box you were referring to is what we old-timers call a package." The bunny rabbit couldn't stifle a yawn.

Barbie's thick eyelashes seemed to sparkle with a coy innocence. "Oh. I thought a 'package' was something entirely different. Silly me."

The bunny rabbit's facial fur took on the tiniest hint of pink. But maybe it was just a trick of light. With some effort he ignored Barbie’s response and continued along his original track. "In this chair, when we use the term 'box' we mean the sort of drab corrugated box that they put you in when you’re no longer a First Team Companion."

Another yawn. Barbie blinked a fetching, one-legged, chipped-plastic blink.

The bunny rabbit's voice slowed, deepened and his words stretched out like they were on rubber bands. "That kind of box is sort of a combination of limbo and a halfway-house. When you’re in one of those boxes you never know if you're headed for a knick-knack shelf, the Salvation Army or…" The bunny rabbit's line of discourse dissolved into yet another yawn.

Barbie blinked again. A little less fetching this time. She was older than she looked.

"Tell you what, Barbie. I'm bushed. The old polar bear and I aren't used to Sunday conversations. And I hate having my furry chairmate miss out on your revelations. So why don't we recess this conversation..."

"Until next Tues-day?" yawned Barbie. "Whatever."

THE END

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