Twentysomethings with pets: Discuss. There are those who choose to completely devote themselves to their animals, beleaguering coworkers with tales of their tails. Maybe you have a fellow employee in IT who has a very special relationship with his ferret or python. Or perhaps you, too, have been on a date with somebody who names his malteses after obscure Roman emperors. Then, there are the girls who have already accumulated countless feline friends; we’ll call them Cat Ladies in Training, or CLITs. Let’s just say that I do my best to avoid CLITs.

Personally, I was raised with rescued thoroughbred spaniels, so I, too, have a soft spot for cuddly, furry animals. Therefore, I wasn’t too fazed when my roommate surprised us with a lop-eared rabbit in October 2008. Rabbits are sort of a novelty pet once you’re more than a decade old, so owning one in your 20s can be ironic, nostalgic and super-cute all at once. Really, housing a rabbit is a very efficient way of being trendy. Sure, our lease required a pet deposit, but we assumed it could be waived due to bunny Sasquatch’s cute nose and plush coat.

Sas was promptly set up with a three-story bunny condo, complete with organic hay and lining of back-issues of Vice. He was a hit at parties, as Facebook pictures document him sporting glow bracelets and eating the fresh mint out of mojitos. Sasquatch is so beloved that one summer day when he went missing from our back patio, we spent an afternoon roaming around SoMo searching for the little guy. This eventually amounted to us sneaking into our neighbor’s back yard and going for a swim in his pool – where we found Sas chilling out by the hot tub. Yes, Sas was a party bun – but his diva days were numbered.

In comes a belligerent landlady; let’s call her Wheezy. Our cute strip of mansard-roof townhomes represents the first of her late husband’s property developments and the last in the family’s possession. It’s logical that she designates a certain degree of preciousness upon the property. When I first moved in, she simply stated in her Texan drawl, “I just wanna provide a good home fer good people like you two!”
 
Wheezy had no idea. Somehow we received no complaints over our first slew of parties: Halloween 2008, Cape Cod Cougars/Jersey Shore Boozers, Yourself from the Future, The '80s Before AIDS, Trendy Indie Kids – just a few of our themed bashes that didn’t even receive a peep from the neighbors. It wasn’t until this past August’s “Look at this Fucking Hipster”-themed event that we caught wind of a negative response. Perhaps this is because the mix of ironically dressed hipsters and regular friends dressed ironically as hipsters decided that outside was the new inside and took to loitering in the street—and on the roofs of strangers’ vehicles.
 
Apparently our next-door neighbors were hosting a quiet dinner party, and when their guests reappeared, they found various kids squatting on their minivan, surrounded by half-empty cans of PBR. Needless to say, Wheezy was not pleased by the sound of the next day’s phone call. She showed up at our door, decked out in the majority of items ever offered at Chico’s, and watched as we removed the Parliament butts and shards of Lone Star bottles from the sidewalk. As we performed the brutal labor, people from the neighborhood passed by and snickered. Said one pedestrian, “Aw, look at the sad hipsters!”
 
Never again were we to host a full-fledged fête. We thought we were golden, as we've kept to ourselves during the past several months.

That is, until yesterday, when we received an angry email from Wheezy revealing that she had learned of our bunny-harboring activities. Not only had we neglected to ever pay that pet deposit (these parties don’t pay for themselves!), but unbeknownst to us, our most recent lease completely forbade pets of any kind. That same day, we received a detailed letter from Wheezy’s real estate attorney. I was completely unaware that people even still sent physical mail. After a futile phone call with the lawyer asking if he could just break his letter down into a few texts or tweets, we decided it was time for Sas to go. The attorney was too busy anyway with the whole Robinhood vs. Beerhaus drama.
 
Perhaps one day I’ll cash in on the American dream and own a home of my own, where rabbits and ragers may coexist. In the meantime, we’ve put him up for adoption. I can take solace in keeping track of Sas Patterson on Facebook and closely following sas_the_bunny’s Twitter.
 
Or maybe we’ll meet again. I always order the braised rabbit at Catalan.