I’ve been thinking lately about how the things that one person finds cute or amusing can be the source of the heebie jeebies or straight up terror for someone else. Some examples:

• Clowns
• Porcelain dolls
• Dogs
• Birds
• Fish

In my case, it’s rabbits. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Monty Python.

When I was in Germany, I stayed at a hotel that only had wifi in the lobby. For four months, I made the daily trek from my hotel room to the lobby to get my Internet fix, and that perilous journey involved going outdoors.

One night on the way back to my room, I spotted a rabbit lurking just off the path. It was rotund and adorable, a blob of fur that brought back memories of Beatrix Potter illustrations and Easter egg hunts. Conveniently, I traveled almost everywhere with a camera to document my wild German spring, but I didn’t want to bother the roosting Leporid, so I snapped a quick photo and slowly backed away to show that I was not a threat.

Except the flash was on.

That’s really the only thing I can think to explain what happened next, which is that the murder-eyed goblin with death on its mind suddenly tore after me in hot pursuit of human blood. The realization that the rabbit was chasing me sent me screaming towards the elevator where I frantically pounded the “door close” button like a victim in a horror movie trope. (Also worth noting: the stairs were right next to the elevator.)

But I survived.

To this day, I can’t look at a Beatrix Potter book without thinking that the author may have actually hated children, and that we have her to blame for lulling the world into a false sense of security regarding the vicious predator known as a bunny rabbit.