Nature's nasty ways

I think Nature is a mean Mother. A leering, spiteful perpetrator of nastiness aforethought. How else to explain the three cases-in-point below?

Case 1. Sweet Little Helpless and Hapless Baby Bunnies

We had a female rabbit living under our deck. A pretty cottontail who, for easier entry and exit, courteously gnawed the merest amount of material from just one diamond-shaped opening in the deck's latticed skirting. I'd see her from time to time—in broad daylight, no less—sitting or lying in our backyard. Sometimes the wind would swirl her thick fur as if to punch the last bit of breath from me with her beauty.

Then came the day my son was scattering clumps of poorly mulched grass after mowing the lawn, and accidentally raked away the clump emplaced by momma rabbit to conceal her nest—a shallow circular depression smack dab in the middle of the yard. Daniel looked down and saw a half dozen squirming baby bunnies, bald and blind. Susan and I hurried out to behold their inexcusable preciousness before he reconstructed the covering as best he could.

It started raining a few hours later, rained all night, and was still raining when I checked the nest the next day, fearing the babies might be flooded. They seemed okay, but I called animal control anyway and was told no worries, mate: Rabbits commonly situate nests in open areas; the mothers never come around during the day; if the babies get too wet she'll move them.

Well! All well and good. Nature knows best. The three of us felt enormously relieved—until about noon the following day, when I looked out the kitchen window and saw a huge, brown, frigging cat hunched over the nest and blatantly polishing off a fresh-meat meal.

Now, I ask you. Wasn't it a nasty bit of business on Mother Nature's part to make mother bunnies plant baby bunnies out in the open—and leave them unattended from sunup to sundown with nothing more than a thatch of grass for protection? Especially when sturdy wooden decks featuring predator-resistant skirting stand thirty feet away? I mean, that's just mean.

Case 2. Our Dog's Bottomless Pit

I am one-hundred percent certain I could kill our dog by ripping open a 25 pound bag of Kibbles 'n Bits, spilling it all over the floor, and saying "Bon appetit." Our dog seems innately unable to register, much less obey, a message of fullness emanating from her tummy zone. She would eat until her insides explode, I'm convinced, and with no discernible diminution of speed or urgency right up to detonation. What is the deal with that? How come our dog's eating-light glows eternally green? And listen, this is more than theoretical: She got hold of a large loaf of discarded cornbread one time and ate until she collapsed. Wiring her brain like that strikes me as kinda mean. Even gorging lions have the sense to push away from the table and leave a little carcass for the hyenas.


Case 3. Romantic Love Between Human Males and Females

Permit me to tell it like it is: Men equate romantic love with yee-haw love; women equate it with cuddle love. And each expects the other not only to supply the brand of romantic love desired—both regularly and profusely—but to really, really want to. Could anything be rigged more effectively for failure?

I rest my case.

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