Lucky, My Foot!

What is it with humans and "lucky" items, like rabbits' feet? Some items, like a four-leaf clover, can be had without the death of anything (the clover plant can go on living after the loss of the "lucky" item). But others, like a rabbit's foot, certainly entail the demise of the donor.

Is this a cruel variant of "one man's trash is another man's treasure"? You know, "your bad luck is my good luck"? Is that how you raise your children these days? It seems like a rather extreme finders keepers, losers weepers attitude (I'm sure Gene Bob will let me know if I'm missing any punctuation in that phrase).

Besides, other than "Elephant Stew" and a shrinking community of country folk, there doesn't appear to be much demand for any part of the rabbit but the hind feet. Pretty wasteful, don't you think?

Aside #Add 1 Rabbit: Surely you've all heard about the recipe for Elephant Stew? It serves about 100 people, but includes directions for how to extend the recipe to feed 200 people by adding one rabbit. Adding the rabbit does the trick because no one want to find a hare in their stew. Ha ha. ROTFLMFO!

Aside #2': ROTFLMFO is SMS for Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Foot Off. Maybe that explains the source of rabbits' feet.

I know, some of you are thinking of rabbit fur lined gloves. They used to be popular (except with the rabbits), but these days they're rather hard to find. Sadly, rabbit feet in all manner of unnatural colors aren't.

And it's not like you need to slaughter a bunch of rabbits anyway just to keep the population down. Only about 15% of wild rabbits survive more than a year! While humans are losing their taste for rabbit stew; coyotes, owls, hawks, bobcats, wolves, foxes, and domesticated cats and dogs, plus a bunch of other critters, are still quite fond of us.

And then there are Chevy Suburbans.

So please, if you won't pass up the "lucky" rabbit foot to save the life of a rabbit, how about doing so to keep a wild animal from starving? After all, a well fed coyote isn't likely to come after Fluffy, your cute little lap dog (or cat).