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While Motts was a complex creature with countless contradictory characteristics, it must be acknowledged that his primary distinguishing feature was, without a doubt, his cuteness. Anyone who bothered to really observe him for even a moment would have to admit, his cuteness knew no bounds. Moreover, Motts truly embraced his cuteness, inhabiting the archetype of cute to the fullest. Living with Motts for the better part of five years, I became deeply acquainted with the many facets of his cuteness. You could say that I became a very specific sort of connoisseur of cuteness, quick to recognize and appreciate his most especially cute postures, mannerisms, and expressions.
And so, while I will remember Motts for many things, I will remember his cuteness most of all. Which is funny, because while I so appreciated cuteness in Motts, it’s the same characteristic I’ve always despised in myself.
My tastes, my inclinations, my voice, and, let’s face it, my face, are mostly just cute. Like Motts, both my nose and my senior thesis are distinguished primarily by their cuteness. (I mean, really, that was basically the verdict of three of my favorite English professors. They gave me high honors, but…pretty much for cuteness.)
I’ve always gotten that reaction and I’ve always kind of hated it, because I didn’t aspire to cuteness, I aspired to brilliance (and beauty), and being taken remotely seriously ever by anyone is kind of a prerequisite for brilliance, I assume. At this point, I’m less hung up on the brilliance thing, fortunately, because that ship has pretty much sailed. (And I don’t have the bone structure for beauty.) So maybe it’s time to embrace the cuteness? I tried to quash it, but maybe it’s all I have. Maybe I should just be what I am, like Motts, diminutive, dismissible cuteness and all?
I might as well try.
Motts, my work in progress is dedicated to you and your cuteness.
Motts was the cutest, silliest, most lovable, and most loving rabbit ever. You might not think that a rabbit could have as much personality as a dog or a cat, but Motts really did. I can’t believe he’s gone. It happened so suddenly, within just a few hours. He was only five. I was expecting him to live for at least another two or three years.
I got him on December 26, 2005, at NJ Pets on Route 10, which I’m pretty sure no longer exists. I decided I wanted a rabbit on a whim after it occurred to me that caged animals were allowed in the dorms at school. The pet store had a litter of baby bunnies, but they weren’t quite old enough to take home yet, and I was too impatient to wait a week. I wanted a rabbit right that very second, and that’s how I ended up with Motts. They told me he was around four months old at the time.
I named him Chaucer at first, but it didn’t roll off the tongue, and I found myself calling him “Bunny” instead. In January, a few friends from home came to visit me at school in Vermont. After coming back from a party, we were drunk and hungry and I had some applesauce in my mini fridge. I pondered Applesauce for a new name, but that was too many syllables, so one of the guys suggested Motts, and that’s what stuck.
He spent a lot of time hiding under furniture at first, and when I tried to get him to snuggle on the bed with me while we watched movies, he wasn’t into it. But after a while he was running in circles around my chair and tickling my feet with his whiskers while I sat at my desk writing papers. The next year, I lived in a big suite with three other girls, and Motts would hop up and down the hallway and poke his head into their bedrooms.
When I graduated, he came back to New Jersey with me, and later that summer we briefly moved into an apartment in the East Village with my best friend and two other girls. It was brutally hot, we had no air conditioning, and Motts couldn’t hop around on the hardwood floors without slipping. That situation didn’t last long. I couldn’t find a job in New York and neither of us was happy in that apartment, so pretty soon we were back in New Jersey at my parents’ house.
A few days after Christmas that year, I moved to San Francisco, while Motts stayed behind in New Jersey. After I got settled in and finally found a job, my mom and sister came out for a visit, and they brought Motts with them. He was already accustomed to road trips between Vermont and New Jersey, but this was his first of many airplane trips. He became a seasoned traveler, flying from California to New Jersey and back almost every time I did. (And I became accustomed to paying an extra fee, which quickly rose from $60 to $250, every time I bought a plane ticket.)
His quality of life increased dramatically when I quit my job this past January, because I was suddenly home during the day, which meant lots more freedom and playtime for him. He became so much more outgoing and affectionate. He started jumping up on the couch and demanding pets and cuddles, which was such a nice development. When I’d lie back with my feet up on the couch and my laptop on my stomach, he’d hop onto my chest and stick his whiskers right in my face. He also started following me around the apartment in the past few months, even venturing across hardwood floors to watch me wash dishes in the kitchen or come check on me in the bathroom.
Up until last night, he seemed totally healthy and happy and normal, eating and drinking and pooping and hopping around.
This morning, Ed decided to work from home because he isn’t feeling well. At around 10:30 AM, he noticed that Motts seemed weirdly sleepy and lethargic. And he hadn’t eaten his breakfast. I offered him a carrot and he turned his head away, which was very unusual. So I called the vet where we took him a couple of years ago, when he had some kind of rash, but they didn’t have time to see him today. I called every vet in San Francisco that takes “exotics,” and everyone agreed that it was an emergency, but nobody had time to see him. Finally, I found a vet in Oakland that would, so we put him in his travel bag and rushed to the car.
I held his bag in my lap and opened the top to pet him and talk to him, but he flopped over on his side. He was already so limp and weak, and as we drove over the Bay Bridge I felt his warm body get cold, and I saw his big blue eyes lose their light.
I’m really, really, really, really, really sad now. Ed, too.
Rest in peace, Motts. I love you forever.
