Today was my annual pilgrimage in search of a decent chocolate bunny.

I had no intention of visiting Wally World. Last time, the only thing available was crucifixes in both milk and white chocolate. Yeesh, it's already a co-opted pagan celebration. You don't have to go rubbing our noses in it! Talk about your last temptation of Christ!

No, my first stop was the mall. After a bite of supper at the local Todai, it was down to the chocolate store. Let's see, chocolate peanut butter cups, chocolate covered apples, chocolate covered potato chips, chocolate covered employees. No chocolate bunnies. Shocking.

Next, the old stand by, Target. Saturday night, and the place was packed. Nincompoops yammering all over the place. What were they all looking for, the night before Easter?

I fought my way to the special Easter section. Al-Qaeda had been there first. The shelves were decimated. Easter egg coloring kits, bags of little chocolate eggs, plastic grass and colorful baskets strewn everywhere. Marshmallow peeps crawled pitiably out from the corners where they had been beaten and maimed. The lot of them suffering from PTSD. They told me that many of their relatives had been marched to the microwave aisle in Home Appliances.

And then I saw them, glaring balefully down from the top shelf at all of us, with bright yellow sugar eyes, dotted in blue. A long row of two foot tall chocolate hares. Every one of them named Hoppy. "So Hoppy to see you!" "Feeling Hoppy? Jump on up and take a bite out of me, why don'cha?" "Hoppy kai yai yay! Get along little doggie. It's your misfortune and none of my own." It was frightening. I fled.

I went last where I should have gone first. Long's Drugs in the more genteel part of town. It was still Night of the Lepus, there. Marshmallow filled, caramel filled, milk chocolate flavored? What in tarnation is that? I snatched up the one remaining solid dark chocolate specimen. If there had been another, I might have bought two, but I didn't figure the little fella was going to have time to get lonely.

He's still sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for the end.

And now a word to the chocolate bunny manufacturers.

First, everybody knows the ears are the most popular place to start munching. They just lend themselves to the task. But that doesn't mean you should be making those mutants with the extra long ears. It's just plain unnatural! And you know what? They don't get bought.

Second, I don't like my cocoa creatures giving me full frontal, with a big goofy grin on their mugs. Especially when you put big staring peepers on them. Nobody wants their snack treats oggling back at them while being masticated. I like my rabbits expressionless, with no doo-dads stuck to 'em, just plain bas relief, dans le profil; so sideways that they're part flounder.

So stop it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment.