We added one to our ranks last night. On our way walking to our local favorite Chinese food restaurant in our neighborhood, we passed by a vendor on the street. The man was selling some sort of melon, as well as a box that contained two small rabbits! The kids of course went nuts, since they've just been getting more and more accustomed to the long-eared hopping animals due to our neighbors having one as a pet. To make a long story short, we ended up coming home with only one of the little critters! (She has yet to be named!)
My favorite part of the evening was after I'd bargained some with the man selling the rabbits and we'd agreed on a price, his obvious plan for "packaging" the rabbit for me to take home. As he held the small animal dangling in the air by its ears, he pulled out one of the red plastic bags that he was giving the melons to people in after they'd made their purchases from him! I implored him quickly to "Deng yi xia!" ("wait a minute!") while I yelled for Kevin who was waiting behind a wall on the bridge above us. We had already purchased the cage for the rabbit across the street at a small pet store, but Kevin wisely pointed out that him walking up to the street vendor with an obviously-already-purchased cage would definitely NOT help my bargaining on the price! So we managed to bring our new family member home in her new cage rather than the plastic bag that was the alternate means of transportation! I'm thinking that it was probably a lot less traumatic than it could have been!
