Chico Says Hello (Very Polite Bun)
This morning Chico sat up straight in the corner of my room here in Meknes, ears forward, front paws together like a small gentleman waiting to be noticed, and held the pose until I looked over and said good morning. He does this most days now. I call it his hello, and the household has learned to treat it with respect. A greeting ignored is a greeting repeated louder, usually with a nose pressed against my ankle. So we built a system around it, half joke and half house law, and this post is the written version of that system, kept for the diary and for anyone who thinks rabbits do not have manners.
Preamble: why politeness gets paperwork
Some rabbits demand breakfast by rattling the bars. Chico asks for the day by sitting up and waiting. The difference matters to me, so I reward it on purpose. Every hello gets an answer, every answer gets head pets, and every month gets a photo of the greeting pose so I can watch it change as he grows. Friends laugh when I describe the protocol, then they visit and watch him do it, and they stop laughing and start lining up to receive their own hello. Manners, it turns out, are contagious. Mine have improved too, since ignoring a polite bunny feels worse than ignoring a rude alarm clock.
Article I: the morning hello
The ritual starts when I sit up in bed. Chico positions himself where I can see him, rises onto his back feet, and freezes with ears forward. Eye contact is mandatory on both sides. I say his name and good morning, and only then does he relax, usually with a full-body shake and a hop toward the rug. The whole exchange takes under a minute, and it sets the tone for everything after. I have tested skipping it exactly once, on a rushed morning, and spent the rest of the day being followed by a bunny who kept re-staging the pose in every room I entered. Lesson recorded. No hello goes unanswered in this house, no matter how busy the morning looks.
Article II: the head-pet tariff
- One hello earns one full session of head pets, counted slowly, never rushed
- Extra flourishes, such as a nose nudge after the hello, earn extra cheek rubs
- Pets are paid immediately, at the greeting site, before breakfast preparations begin
The tariff is fixed and non-negotiable, at least according to Chico. Fingers must be warm, strokes must run from forehead to ears, and stopping early triggers an immediate headbutt to the hand, which I have learned to read as a formal complaint. I keep a mental ledger, and he keeps a better one. Visitors are briefed before they are introduced: pet the head, skip the belly, and do not withdraw the hand while the ears are still forward. Similar lessons from the early weeks live in my trust diary from the first weeks, when every touch was a negotiation and every accepted stroke felt like a signed treaty.
Article III: the monthly portrait
On the first weekend of each month I photograph the greeting pose from the same spot by the door, same light, same angle. Twelve photos a year sounds excessive until you line them up and watch the ears get longer, the chest fill out, and the pose get taller and more confident. The collection lives in a folder with dates for names, and comparing two months side by side is my favorite quiet evening activity. Posture tells a story that weight and size alone cannot, and the hello portrait catches it. Future me will be grateful, because memory blurs the small changes and the camera does not. Chico tolerates the session as long as the tariff from Article II is paid first.
Article IV: translations and thank-you notes
Chico says thank you after the pets, and I translate. The thank-you takes several forms: a soft tooth grind that I feel more than hear, a flop onto his side near my feet, or a slow blink from the rug that means the account is settled. I announce these translations out loud for guests, who accept my authority as interpreter without question. The system works because it is consistent. Hello gets pets, pets get thanks, thanks get logged here. Some evenings he adds an encore performance, sitting up again at lamp light for a second round, and the house rule covers that too: encores are honored, always. His nudges and cuddle requests follow the same grammar I described in my head nudges and cuddles log, and regular readers will recognize the vocabulary.
Article V: the committee of one
All legislation in this house passes through a committee of one small bunny, and he is both strict and fair. New rules proposed by humans, such as asking him to say hello before I have sat up, are rejected without debate. Amendments proposed by Chico, such as extending the tariff to include cheek rubs on rainy days, pass unanimously. I serve as secretary, enforcer, and treat dispenser. The arrangement sounds one-sided until you receive a hello so earnest that your whole morning improves, and then the power balance feels about right. He runs the meetings. I take the minutes. Everyone eats on time.
Politeness logged for today, head pets distributed as requested, portrait folder one photo fuller than last month. If your rabbit has a greeting ritual of their own, answer it tomorrow morning and watch what happens. Mine turned a quiet corner of a room in Meknes into the most courteous spot in the house, and the minutes of every meeting say the same thing: hello received, thanks translated, system working exactly as designed.
Next in this chapter…
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