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By Dean Norman

I don’t really remember this story, but my parents said it happened. I got my first chocolate Easter Bunny when I was two years old. Maybe a little older. I sat at the dinner table, and hopped the bunny around. Pretending it was alive.

I ate some Easter candy, but didn’t bite into the chocolate bunny.

At meals after that I continued to hop the chocolate bunny on the table. Mom and Dad encouraged me to start eating it. I didn’t. Mom was afraid it was getting dirty, and might not be fit to eat.

When desert was served at another meal, a plate of chocolate bits in different shapes was passed around. I picked up a bit of chocolate, and said sadly, “It’s its tail.”        

Mom and Dad didn’t think I would recognize the bits as parts of the chocolate bunny. Now they thought I might be too sad to eat the Easter Bunny parts. But I had known that it was meant to be eaten from the beginning. Just wanted to play with the bunny a few more days.

Mom and Dad helped me eat the bits, and told me there would be another chocolate bunny next Easter. Anyway, the real Easter Bunny we sometimes saw hopping about in our yard would never be eaten. He was like Santa Claus. A magic person that lived forever to make little kids happy.

— Dean Norman 

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards,The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.