The Latest Research on Easter, Chocolate Eggs & Bunny Rabbits

Source:  The Daily Mirror

In our ongoing efforts to help the common, garden-variety writer stay current with the latest in scientific research as it pertains to content, character and story, we recently stopped by one of our favorite research institutions, the acclaimed University of Northern South Dakota at Hoople.

As always, Deano Goodwhiskey, pictured left, a noted researcher in topics as varied as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia and advanced methodology of procuring lucrative government grants and fellowships without the need to produce anything remotely concrete greeted us with his hand out.

“Yes,” reports professor Goodwhiskey, “a well designed and carefully prepared research grant proposal can lead to years of avoiding real work, perchance even an Ig Nobel Prize if one plays one’s cards right.  After all, if a researcher can be awarded an Ig Nobel for shoving salt pork up his nose to cure nosebleed, I can win one for debunking this rabbits-laying-chocolate-eggs bunkum. Besides, I have long believed that research can be far less laborious than, say, ditch-digging or living with teenagers.  Far less dangerous as well.  Especially the living with teenagers part.”

So we asked professor Goodwhiskey about his latest research project on the evolution of the common Easter Bunny.

“Ah, our latest project, labelled by some heretics and other criminal investigators as the ‘scam of the century’ has still led to some amazing conclusions.  For example, do you know that the Easter Bunny has nothing to do with Easter?  No, siree, Bob.  Nor with eggs.  Nor chocolate, as far as that goes.  We surveyed a number of local farmers and not one knew how to get a rabbit to lay an egg, let alone one made of chocolate.  A chocolate egg, that is, not a chocolate bunny, though that is an interesting hypothesis that might be profitable to look into.”

“But back to our basic research.   In an all-out effort to live up the University of Northern South Dakota at Hoople P.T. Barnum School of Sociopathology motto, 'Quidam ludificatio magna pars hominum ad tempus*,' we sent several of our more adventurous graduate students undercover at select local chicken farms to see if they could ferret out the secret of chocolate eggs.  All they discovered is that ferrets like to eat chickens, and we all know that ferrets are mammals which means we are fairly certain they don’t lay eggs at all.  We are designing a research project that will, we hope, verify this important fact.”

“So, in one way we’re back to square one,” Goodwhiskey continued.  “But, we are not giving up.  Science is the art overcoming the objections of funding agencies and regulatory bodies.  We will get to the bottom of this scam.  I mean, journalists and other miscreants should be ashamed, misleading the everyday American with claims that bunny rabbits lay chocolate eggs."

"To refute this, we are organizing an expedition to the fabled Chocolate Train between Montreux and Gruyère in the south of Switzerland.  Our goal, of course, is to detail graphically how chocolate eggs are actually a byproduct of running a steam locomotive through the Swiss Alps.

"Our expedition also includes a side-trip to Rome, reputed home of the Catholic Church, to investigate how the Easter Bunny came to be associated with what is assumed to be a religious holiday.  I have great personal hopes that this research will resurrect my career.  You know, miracles do happen.  May I put you down for a most generous donation to our project?”

We escaped Dr. Goodwhiskey with our wallets and fortunes essentially intact, with the promise that we receive an update that will be published in an upcoming post of Science News for Writers.

* Fooling most of the people, some of the time.